The Boy is Gone
by Erin Giles
Summary: The Rift has never been the most stable influence in Ianto Jones’ life but when children in Cardiff start disappearing all over the city, Ianto’s family life crashes rather dramatically with Torchwood. Sequel to "Family Matters" and "A Nostalgic Yearning"
1. Chapter 1

**TITLE**: The Boy Is Gone

**AUTHOR**: Erin Giles

**DISCLAIMER**: Torchwood and its characters are property of the BBC. The Family Jones is of my own creation.

**RATING**: PG-15

**PAIRINGS/CHARACTERS**: Jack/Ianto, Gwen, OC's

**SUMMARY**: The Rift has never been the most stable influence in Ianto Jones' life but when children in Cardiff start disappearing all over the city, Ianto's family life crashes rather dramatically with Torchwood.

**AUTHOR NOTES**: This is the sequel to my stories, "Family Matters" and "A Nostalgic Yearning" and is the finale in the series "Footprints in the Sand". It will not make sense unless you have read these. Set in post Exit Wounds.

I have been pulling my hair out over this piece. It's not entirely finished (so I fear there may be a brief hiatus at some point) and I don't entirely know how long it's going to be (I tentatively estimate around 15 chapters and 35000 words). Also it may bear some resemble to Torchwood: Lost Souls. Please note this was written before I even knew what the radio play was about, let alone what happened. Finally the title 'The Boy is Gone' is in reference to the quote from Finding Neverland, "Magnificent. The boy is gone. In the last 30 seconds... you became a grown-up."

**Friday 15th August 11.42am**

"Ianto!" Jack called as he stumbled across the rubble of the building. He had a terrified flashback to when a building had collapsed on them not so long ago. He could remember searching fruitlessly through the rubble then, calling out to Ianto in the hope that there would be some answering cry. Jack had died and Ianto had come away with a few bumps and bruises. Jack dreaded to think that he had been less lucky this time.

"Ianto!" Jack yelled into the silence of the building. He heard Gwen stumbling along behind him, calling out to the young Welshman as well, desperation in her own voice. She wasn't ready to lose another member of their team; Jack didn't think she could cope if it happened again.

Jack paused, sure he had heard something. He motioned for Gwen to stop.

"What is it?" Gwen asked, hope daring to break through in her voice.

Jack put a finger to his lips as he listened again, his ears honed like a cats for the slightest sound or movement.

"Ianto?" He called tentatively.

"Uncle Jack?" A hesitant voice bounced back to them in the empty building before Jack was lurching over rubble again towards the source of the voice.

"Finn? Where are you?" Jack shouted in desperation. He heard Finn sobbing in reply as he rounded what was left of the corner of one of the rooms. He found the small boy cowering beside a steel girder, coated in dust but apparently unharmed. He crossed to him without hesitation, pulling the boy up into his arms, rubbing at his back in reassurance as he cried into the shoulder of Jack's coat.

"He won't wake up." Finn sobbed between hiccupping breaths, clinging onto Jack's coat with vehemence. Jack was about to ask what the boy was talking about when he heard Gwen gasp from behind him.

"Oh God, Ianto!" Gwen was on her knees in front of Jack now, pulling away bricks in an attempt to get to the prone body of Ianto Jones lying half under the steel girder. Her shaking fingers felt tentatively for a pulse at his neck as Jack's brain shut down. He knew he should be calling an ambulance, searching for the rest of the missing kids, helping Gwen dig Ianto out of the rubble, comforting Finn; but all he could do was stand there and listen as the building continued to fall down around him.

**Friday 8th August 11.42am**

Finn looked down at his legs as he swung them happily back and forth on the plastic waiting seat. Ianto was sat beside him pretending to read the magazine he was flicking through while he kept glancing at the clock on the wall before checking his mobile for any missed calls.

"Do you think I'll get a little brother or a little sister?" Finn asked, trying to sound nonchalant about the whole thing when Ianto knew how uncertain he was about having a sibling. Ianto couldn't entirely blame him.

"I don't know, what would you like Mummy to have?" Ianto asked, putting his phone back in his jacket pocket and turning to regard his nephew.

"I don't know. A little brother might steal all my toys, but then a little sister might not want to play with me. But if I got a little sister then I could look out for her like you do for Mummy." Finn enthused, looking back up at Ianto. Ianto failed to correct Finn and the fact that he was actually the younger sibling and it was really Rhiannon who looked out for him.

"So if you could choose you'd have a little sister then?" Ianto prompted, watching as Rhiannon wobbled down the corridor towards them behind a nurse.

"Doesn't Mummy get to choose what she has then?" Finn asked, suddenly curious about this fact. Ianto chuckled.

"Sadly no. She gets what she's given which is why she's put up with you for so long." Ianto teased, tickling his nephew as Rhiannon arrived in front of them, taking her coat and handbag that Ianto presented her with.

"Everything ok?" Ianto asked, smiling at Ria as Finn continued to giggle, recovering from Ianto's attack on him.

"Yup, it's still in there, hugging my bladder and making me want to pee every five seconds." Ria moaned, handing her coat back over before disappearing across the waiting room to the toilets there. Ianto watched her go before sitting back down again with a sigh. He was never going to make it back to work in time to have lunch with Jack and Gwen at this rate.

"Mummy's grumpy." Finn pointed out as he sat down beside Ianto, mirroring his sigh. Apparently his nephew was just as fed up with living in the same house as a hormonal Rhiannon as he was.

**Friday 8****th**** August 12.17pm**

"Right, I'll do the food shopping on the way home from work, and the washing's been on, you just need to take it out the dryer when it's done. Also there's a shirt of mine in the sink that I'd be grateful if you would rinse out and hang up before tea?" Ianto looked hopefully down at his sister who was now lying back on the couch, channel hopping, settling on Jeremy Kyle.

"When will you be home?" Ria asked, almost sulkily.

"I don't know, but I'll get the shopping on the way back I promise." Ianto replied, running back into the kitchen to get Ria the cup of tea she had wanted.

"Remember and bring back another jar of branston pickles. Also are you still taking us up to Dad's for lunch?" Ria called after him.

Ianto took a deep breath as he poured the hot water into the mug, counting backwards from ten.

"Yeah, I'll drop you up there when you've finished your tea. But I can't pick you up I'm afraid." Ianto replied, coming back into the living room with a mug of some awful smelling herbal tea, which Ria took happily from him.

"Thanks love." Ria genuinely smiled up at him, supping on her tea before she settled in to watch the Jeremy Kyle show. Ianto knew that she wasn't moving until it had finished.

"I'll just go clean the bathroom and kitchen while you drink that." Ianto said dejectedly, shrugging off his suit jacket and rolling up his shirtsleeves. He could probably catch 40 winks now if he really wanted but he didn't know when he'd get another chance to clean his house, which he'd already neglected for two weeks. He hadn't had time between helping clear up Cardiff after John Hart's attack on it; sorting out the Hub after everything - which included the emotional state of both Jack and Gwen which was fragile at best; running his pregnant sister around half of Wales to doctor's appointments; taking his nephew to nursery, the park, the swimming pool and most unforgettably to the supermarket to do the weekly shop he just hadn't had a chance to make sure there were no toothpaste stains on the bathroom sink and nothing growing in the bottom of the fridge.

"By the way the hot water in the main bathroom's not working again." Ria called after him. Ianto scrubbed his face in frustration. Another day, another problem, he thought.

**Friday 8****th**** August 3.58pm**

"Ianto?" Jack called softly as he stood over the young Welshman slouched on Tosh's old workstation. Jack placed a hand on Ianto's shoulder, shaking slightly.

"Ianto?" Jack repeated. Ianto woke with a start, blinking blearily at his surroundings before catching sight of Jack stood next him.

"Did you-" Ianto coughed. "Did you want something?"

"I want you to go home." Jack answered truthfully as his hand moved to the back of Ianto's neck, kneading the knotted muscles there.

"Jack, I need to finish off these reports and then I need to finish running diagnostics on the system and then there's-"

"The paperwork will wait until tomorrow, the diagnostics can be left to run overnight." Jack reasoned. "Also I know you're good but I don't think even you can work with your eyes closed."

"I was just resting them." Ianto protested, moving to stand up and walk away. There was a problem though, Jack was doing that thing with his fingers at the back of Ianto's neck that he usually reserved for post-coital bliss or when Ianto had had a particularly bad day and was having trouble sleeping. Now though Ianto knew he was doing it to prove his point and get his own way. Ianto's body wasn't listening to him either, his shoulders were sagging and he was slouching forward towards the desk again, sighing in pleasure.

"Want me to drive you home?" Jack asked softly as he continued to knead at the back of Ianto's neck.

Ianto let out a breathy please as his eyes slipped closed again, his body betraying him as he stumbled to his feet and then fell into Jack's arms in exhaustion.

"When's the last time you went home?" Jack pressed as he guided Ianto towards the exit.

"When did you come over last?" Ianto asked, frowning in confusion.

"Eh, about five days ago. Ianto please tell me you have been home in that time and actually slept?" Jack looked worried now as he pressed his palm flat against Ianto's back.

"Well I've been home, but at home there's Finn who's up at the crack of dawn watching cartoons and Ria who currently gets up to go to the loo every five minutes during the night like she's a leaky camel." Ianto admitted as he tripped over his own feet into the lift. Jack let out a slight chuckle at Ianto's description of his sister.

"You need to get some sleep Ianto." Jack whispered sadly, pressing a kiss into Ianto's hairline. "You're no good to me or Gwen unable to function due to lack of sleep, or worse, dead."

"'m sorry. Just there's so much to do. There's three times as much work to do now that-" Ianto trailed off guiltily.

"But you don't have to do it all yourself, Ianto. You're only one man, you were already doing the job of two people before all this happened. You're going to make yourself ill, and then where will Gwen and me be? Effectively another two men down with a job to do between the two of us that requires six people." Jack half teased as he opened the door of the tourist office.

"I'd still help. Even if I was ill." Ianto admitted sheepishly as Jack laughed in reply.

"I know you would." Jack rolled his eyes in response. "But you just need to slow down a bit okay otherwise you're going to burn up or burn out, and as hot as you are, neither sound particularly pretty to me."

Ianto smiled as he opened the passenger door to the SUV, climbing in less than gracefully.

"Ok?" Jack asked as he slammed his door shut behind him.

"Ok." Ianto nodded, his head already resting against the back of the seat as he nodded lazily, his eyes drifting shut again.

"I'll have a word with Ria about you getting some uninterrupted sleep. You can sleep at the Hub if you want, I know my bed's not the comfiest." Jack offered, not starting the engine but looking over intently at Ianto in the passenger seat.

"She's taken Finn round Dad's today. They won't be back until after dinner." Ianto said round a yawn.

"Good." Jack almost sighed with relief as he started the engine of the SUV, pulling away.

"I'll come back and make you dinner later on if you want?" Jack glanced over into the passenger's seat when Ianto wasn't forthcoming with a reply. Ianto's head was slumped against the window; eyes closed and mouth open, causing Jack to smile affectionately.


	2. Chapter 2

**AUTHOR NOTES**: Fluff be in this chapter. Although please don't expect it to last forever. For those of you that didn't ignore the opening paragraphs you will not be surprised to hear the rest of the story will be full of drama and angst... someone asked me to define a genre for it... eh... Drama/Hurt/Comfort/Angst/Adventure/Mystery/Family etc etc...

* * *

**Friday 8th August 6.39pm**

"Jack?"

"Gwen?" Jack looked up from the paper work he was finishing off to find Gwen stood nervously in his office doorway.

"I was going to head off now if you don't need me for anything else." Gwen gestured nervously over her shoulder.

"No, I think I'm pretty much done for the night as well." Jack replied, shuffling some papers into a pile as if to emphasise his point.

"Okay." Gwen nodded before reluctantly backing out the office and moving over to the coat stand. Jack got up from his desk to follow her.

"Gwen?"

"Yes?" Gwen swung round to face Jack, an eager look on her face.

"Rhys is on that business trip this weekend isn't he?" Jack wasn't in the mood to beat around the bush; in fact he was generally as a rule bordering on blunt.

"Yeah, I was just going to stay in with a bottle of wine and the telly." Gwen paused slightly as if she wanted to say something more, as if she wanted to ask Jack to stay with her, but he beat her to it.

"If you want you can come with me to Ianto's?" Jack asked as he reached past her to pull his own coat from the stand.

"Don't be daft Jack, I don't want to intrude on your night in together." Gwen put up a token resistance as she too reached for her coat.

"Did you see Ianto earlier on?" Jack asked with a half smile on his face. "I doubt he'll be able to lift the fork to his mouth he's that tired."

"As long as you don't mind." Gwen tried once more to make it look like she wasn't being pathetic about the fact she didn't want to spend the night on her own.

"Ianto won't mind. It'll have to be the couch though I'm afraid; his sister and nephew currently occupy his spare bedroom. Although I can vouch for the comfort of the couch." Jack replied as he held out his arm for Gwen to take.

"Did Ianto kick you out one night?" Gwen asked as they ascended in the lift.

"He might of." Jack answered slyly, causing Gwen to chuckle in reply.

**Friday 8th August 7.04pm**

"This is where Ianto lives?" Gwen asked as she stood at the gate to Ianto's front garden. She was stood in front of an old terraced house that looked like it belonged to a young family rather than the Ianto Jones she had come to know and love.

"Number 51. Yup." Jack nodded, amused by Gwen's disbelief.

"Unless he's moved."

Jack pushed the gate open and started walking up the path to Ianto's front door. Gwen expected him to ring the doorbell when he got there but he fished a large bunch of keys out his pocket, finding a bright red one that he stuck in the front door. Gwen watched in almost disbelief as Jack wiped his feet on the mat at the door before toeing off his boots and hanging up his coat. Jack turned to take Gwen's jacket from her as she shut the door behind her before feeling obliged to remove her own shoes.

In the hallway it still didn't feel like it was Ianto's house, even with the mail on the hall table addressed to Mr. Ianto Jones. A pair of Thomas the Tank Wellingtons sat on the mat next to Ianto's highly polished work shoes and she almost baulked at the domesticity of it all. Jack seemed to take pity on her as she continued to gaze round at the small hallway in disbelief.

"Trust me, he does live here. There are things labelled in the freezer." Jack joked as he shuffled down the hall to the living room. Gwen smiled at his retreating back.

"Ianto?" Jack called out to the docile house, listening for a reply. None was forthcoming but it didn't seem to worry Jack. He peered into the living room and when he found nothing untoward continued on down the hall to the kitchen.

"Do you want a drink or something? I think there's some wine in here somewhere." Jack called back out to Gwen who had entered the living room, another room to marvel at.

"Whatever." Gwen called back as she crossed the room to the bookcase. She found a variety of reading material ranging from old children's book's like 'The Famous Five' to Agatha Christie. There was Dylan Thomas stood next to Emily Dickinson; Shakespeare sharing shelf space with Ian Rankin. She spotted photo frames with pictures of what she could only presume were family members of Ianto's. There were even several of Ianto when he had been a child. One in particular caught her eye though. It was of Jack and Ianto leaning into each other, both with matching smiles, a small child in the middle that Gwen recognised as Ianto's nephew.

"There's only cans of beer in I'm afraid, Ria must of drunk the last of the wine. Also there's not a lot in so I don't think Ianto's been to the shops in a while." Jack apologised as he handed Gwen a can of Brains.

"When was this taken?" Gwen questioned, pointing at the photo of Ianto, Jack and Finn. Jack chuckled before he answered taking a sip of the water he had retrieved for himself.

"When Ianto, Finn and I went to Aberystwyth." Jack laughed, obviously remembering some fond memory.

"That's not the best one from that weekend though."

"Do I want to know?" Gwen asked as she opened her can of beer, slurping at the edge of it as it threatened to spill over.

"What do you fancy for dinner? I think I saw some chicken defrosting in the fridge." Jack commented, changing the subject as he turned to head back out the living room.

Gwen frowned, worrying slightly. "Can you cook?"

**Friday 8th August 8.12pm**

"Dinner's almost ready, will you go and wake Ianto up?" Jack asked over his shoulder, looking at Gwen who was sat at the kitchen table finishing off her can of beer.

"Eh," Gwen suddenly felt nervous as she reluctantly pulled herself to her feet.

"Top of the stairs first door on your right." Jack encouraged with a smile.

Gwen tentatively set off, hesitating at the bottom of the stairs. She caught sight of some of the pictures hung on the walls, landscapes of Welsh countryside and foreign beaches that seemed so homely, yet very Ianto at the same time. She was sure that if she asked Ianto he would probably be able to tell her some story behind every one of them. She paused outside Ianto's bedroom door that was half closed, knocking nervously.

"Ianto, pet?" Gwen called through the gap before gently pushing on the door handle. The room was shrouded in semi-darkness and she could make out the mound in the middle of the covers that appeared to be Ianto shaped.

"Ianto?" She called again, stepping into the room, floorboards creaking below her in protest. Ianto shifted slightly under the covers, a low groan emitting from him.

"Jack?" He grumbled, rolling over in the bed to face Gwen. Gwen had to give him his due though, for all he looked startled to discover her in his bedroom he held his composure well.

"Sorry pet, Jack sent me up to tell you dinner's ready." Gwen apologised, already edging back out the room as Ianto pulled the covers from him.

"When did you get back?" Ianto asked through a yawn as he crossed to his dresser, opening one of the drawers. It took Gwen a moment to reply, slightly shocked by Ianto's candour as he wandered about in his underwear.

"Eh, about an hour ago. Rhys is out of town tonight and Jack asked me back here, he said you wouldn't mind if I stayed." Gwen said apologetically.

"No, that's fine, I'm afraid it'll have to be the couch though since my sister and nephew are in the spare room at the moment. I'll get you some sheets after dinner." Ianto mused as he pulled on a pair of scruffy looking jeans that were ripped in places and covered in paint. He then pulled a baggy polo shirt over his head, not even bothering to fix his hair as it stuck out at odd angles. He paused though when he turned to face Gwen.

"You ok Gwen?"

"What? Yeah. I mean, I'm just so used to you in suits that I suppose I forgot what you look like in anything else." Gwen said apologetically.

"I know, it's shocking to find a human underneath all that tailored fabric." Ianto chuckled as he exited his bedroom, shuffling down the stairs sleepily as he muffled a yawn, rubbing at his eyes.

"Something smells good." Ianto commented as he entered the kitchen, trying to stick his finger in the pan but Jack was swatting his hand away. Gwen watched from the doorway, slightly amused by Jack and Ianto and somewhat surprised to find them so at ease with one another. Sure she saw them together at work but there was always a professional demeanour about them that was full of self-restraint. (Apart from that one time in the hot house.)

Now as she watched them stood beside each other, Ianto's bare foot rubbing against the side of Jack's socked one as they jointly dished up dinner onto three separate plates, she found herself smiling. They were so like an ordinary couple that for the moment Gwen could forget that they worked for Torchwood and that not long ago they'd lost two of their team.

"Gwen you fish a couple of beers out the fridge?" Ianto asked as he placed two plates on the kitchen table, crossing back over to one of the drawers to retrieve some cutlery. Jack shoved the last plate on the table, throwing the dishcloth he had used to pick it up with back on the side of the kitchen work surface. As Gwen pulled up her seat at the table, handing Ianto a can of beer she saw Jack returning, running a hand through Ianto's hair to flatten it slightly. She watched as Ianto barely reacted, digging into his food with gusto.

"Something wrong with my cooking?" Jack questioned Gwen as he too picked up his fork.

"No." Gwen suddenly reanimated, picking up her own fork and smiling slightly before she took her first bite of Jack Harkness' culinary skills. She figured Ianto was eating it willingly so it couldn't be that bad. It was better than Rhys' cooking – which was really saying something, and also something she would never be telling Rhys.

"Oh my god Jack, where did you learn to cook?" Gwen said round a mouthful of chicken, savouring the taste.

"I've picked up a few skills over the years." Jack answered slyly.

**Friday 8th August 9.47pm**

"Ianto?"

Gwen started, not realising that she'd been dosing off in the chair watching a James Bond film. She glanced over at Jack and Ianto on the couch, but Ianto was apparently dead to the world, nestled into the side of Jack as she heard feet running over the floor. Jack's finger flew to his lips, making hushing noises as a little boy with brown hair came skidding to a halt beside the couch.

"Is Uncy Yan sleeping?" Finn asked in a loud stage whisper, looking down at Ianto with curious eyes. Jack nodded, smiling slightly.

"Hi Jack." Ria greeted as she appeared in the living room doorway looking slightly harassed. Jack smiled up at Ria who turned to head into the kitchen as Gwen straightened herself in the chair slightly, suddenly feeling out of place. Jack carefully extracted himself from Ianto's clutches, lowering the slumbering Welshman's head onto a cushion.

"Come on kid." Jack uttered before he swung Finn up into his arms, heading out the living room and motioning for Gwen to follow.

"How was Dylan?" Jack was asking when Gwen appeared in the kitchen doorway, watching as Jack retrieved a carton of juice from the fridge, pulling the straw out the wrapping and puncturing the carton with it before handing it to Finn.

"How he always is, foul mouthed and bad tempered." Ria grumbled as she set the kettle going before sitting down at the kitchen table. It was only now that she noticed Gwen stood awkwardly in the doorway. Ria smiled hesitantly at her before Gwen suddenly realised she should be introducing herself.

"I'm Gwen Cooper, I work with Jack and Ianto. My husbands out of town tonight, so Jack said I could come back with him." Gwen explained, not sure how much Ianto's sister knew.

"Neither of us really wanted to be on our own after last week." Jack added, seeing to Ria's tea, motioning with the kettle to ask Gwen if she wanted one. Gwen nodded in affirmation.

"I can understand that." Ria nodded solemnly as she started rubbing tiredly at her belly, groaning slightly.

"When's it due?" Gwen asked, grinning as she sat down opposite Ria at the kitchen table. Ria smiled fondly, looking down at her stomach, it was Finn who answered for her though.

"Baby Lloyd is coming on the 27th of September." Finn told Gwen matter-of-factly, looking up at her over the top of his juice carton.

"And are you getting a baby brother or a baby sister?" Gwen asked Finlay, just as excited as he.

"I don't know." Finn shrugged. "It's a surprise."

"There you are ladies." Jack announced as he placed two cups of tea on the table. "And yours is camomile before you say anything." Jack added to Ria.

"Oh Jack, you're a pet." Ria sighed as she pulled her tea into her hands and clutched it to her chest gratefully.

"You can cook and make tea?" Gwen teased, eyeing Jack incredulously.

"The things I'm learning about Jack Harkness today." Gwen said as she sipped her tea.

"He does dishes as well. Wears marigolds and everything." Ria added, smiling up at Jack cheekily as Gwen burst out laughing.

"I'm telling Ianto on you." Jack pouted, picking up two more cups of tea before disappearing out the kitchen. Both women looked at each other before laughing. The laughter followed Jack down the corridor to the living room before he realised a set of feet were padding behind him as well, slurping the last of apple juice from the carton.

"You better not be thinking of attacking Uncle Ianto." Jack warned before he turned into the living room. When he turned back Finn was looking up at him with wide eyes, shaking his head innocently.

"Did Uncy Yan get another owie?" Finn asked, clambering up into Gwen's vacated seat as Jack sat down on the coffee table next to the mugs of tea.

"No, Uncle Ianto's just sleepy." Jack replied, reaching out a hand for Ianto's shoulder, shaking it slightly.

"Is he sick then?" Finn asked again. Jack was grateful that Ianto roused at that moment, opening his eyes groggily and yawning.

"I made you a cup of tea." Jack offered, picking up one of the mugs and holding it out to Ianto as he shuffled on the sofa slightly so he was sitting up. Finn was already clambering down from his seat and crossing the living room to pull himself up onto Ianto's lap.

"Hello trouble." Ianto greeted his nephew as he took the mug of tea from Jack.

"Did you have a good time at Grandpa's?" Ianto asked before supping at his tea gratefully, almost spilling it as Finn wriggled restlessly on his lap.

"Mummy and Grandpa yelled a lot about Daddy so I went and played in your room." Finn answered solemnly, picking at one of the holes in Ianto's jeans, pulling on the threads. Ianto looked back up at Jack who was now sat on the other side of the sofa, pretending to channel hop.

Silence descended upon them as Jack settled on The Simpsons. Finn continued to pick at the threads in Ianto's jeans, not really paying any attention to the television as he sucked all the air out of his now empty carton. Ianto took it from him with his free hand and placed it on the coffee table.

"Mummy said we might have to move because there's not enough room for you and Uncle Jack and me and Mummy and the baby. So does that mean that Uncle Jack will be moving in permanently with us?" Finn asked innocently.

"I think," Ianto hesitated, not wanting to break his nephew's heart.

"I think Mummy means you and her and the baby will be getting a place of your own while I stay here."

Finn let out a little 'oh' of understanding, not his usual questioning self, which showed how much his mother and grandfather arguing had affected him. Finn's head dropped onto Ianto's shoulder, and when Ianto looked down at the little boy in his arms his eyes were closed, as he seemed to drift to sleep.

"Come on you," Ianto coaxed softly, handing Jack his mug of tea before he pulled himself to his feet, his nephew in his arms.

"Beddy byes." Ianto hummed before trying to muffle a yawn.

"For both of you I think." Jack commented, switching the television off before he pulled himself to his feet too.

"I'll put this one to bed, do the dishes then I think I'll go to bed too." Ianto agreed.

"Dishes are done. Just go to bed Ianto." Jack urged, before kissing both Finn and Ianto respectively on the forehead.

"Night night." Jack said softly before heading towards the kitchen.

"Shall we say goodnight to Mummy?" Ianto asked his nephew who just nodded tiredly into Ianto's shoulder as he shuffled down the hall into the kitchen where Gwen and Ria were having an animated discussion.

"We've just come to say goodnight." Ianto announced, leaning down so Finn could press a kiss to his mother. Ianto followed suit, pressing a kiss to Ria's forehead before he straightened up again.

"You going to bed as well love?" Ria asked, flexing her feet that were now shoeless and resting on one of the spare seats from round the kitchen table.

"Yeah, I'm still knackered." Ianto admitted before turning to Gwen.

"I'll get the sheets out for you Gwen."

"Oh, thanks." Gwen smiled, bringing herself to her feet.

"Night Mummy, Night Uncle Jack." Finn called over Ianto's shoulder as Gwen smiled to herself at Finn's addressing of Jack before she followed Ianto and Finlay up the stairs.

"Night kid." Jack called after them.

Gwen watched as Ianto disappeared into the spare bedroom with Finn and Gwen hovered outside, unsure whether to go in or not. She got her answer a moment later.

"You can come in you know." Ianto called out to her and Gwen bashfully pushed the door open and entered the room to find Ianto wrestling the clothes from Finlay who was now clutching at a well-worn rabbit, thumb in his mouth.

"There's some sheets and blankets in the bottom drawer." Ianto said, indicating the chest of drawers as Finn decided to be helpful and tugged his t-shirt over his head while trying not to let go of his rabbit.

"Finn you'll need to put Owen down if you want to take your top off, he's not going to fit through your sleeve."

"Will too." Finn argued grumpily and proceeded to tug on the rabbit in an attempt to prove his Uncle wrong. Gwen was meanwhile eyeing the rabbit suspiciously after having heard its name.

"Owen?" Gwen questioned as she clutched the blankets and sheets she'd retrieved to her chest. Ianto plucked the rabbit from his nephew's hands and waggled it in Gwen's direction.

"Meet Owen the rabbit. I bought him for Finn when he was born. Don't think he's put him down since." Ianto commented as he finally managed to get Finn's pyjamas on him before putting the rabbit back in his grasping hands. Gwen tried to suppress a chuckle as she thought of the connotations of her ex-colleague being a rabbit, fondly watching Ianto as he tucked his nephew in under the covers.

"Night trouble." Ianto said softly, bending to kiss his nephew on the head. Finn dug the rabbit out from under the covers, pressing him up into Ianto's face.

"Night Owen." Ianto voiced, pressing a kiss to the rabbit's left ear before he tucked him under the covers next to Finn.

"Now remember Gwen's sleeping in the living room tonight so if you want to watch 'toons in the morning you'll need to knock before you go in. Okay?" Ianto prompted his nephew. Finn looked behind Ianto at Gwen who was now hugging the covers to her chest, a soft smile on her face. Finn seemed to consider her for a moment before he nodded in reply, settling further under the covers and closing his eyes.

"Okay, sleep well Finn." Ianto said, patting the little boy's leg through the covers before pulling himself to his feet.

"Night Uncy Yan." Finn mumbled, already falling asleep as Ianto and Gwen exited the spare room, Ianto pulling the door over behind him.

"I don't know how you kept a straight face at work when you came home to a rabbit named Owen ever day." Gwen smirked.

"Ironic isn't it?" Ianto replied with a sad smile of his own.

"Anyway, I'll get you something to sleep in and you'll have to use the en-suite since the hot water's not working in the main bathroom again, and I haven't got round to fixing it yet." Ianto voiced, leading the way into his bedroom now.

Ianto flicked the light switch and it was only now that Gwen got a proper look at Ianto's bedroom. Only it wasn't just Ianto's bedroom. There were clothes on the chair by the bed that she recognised as Jack's, there were cufflinks on the dresser that were Jack's; there were shoes at the end of the bed that were Jack's. And Gwen could probably guess that she would find a toothbrush in the bathroom that was Jack's. It was more domesticity that Gwen was surprised at. Ianto was fishing in a drawer now, pulling out an over sized t-shirt which he handed to Gwen before indicating the en-suite.

"Help yourself to what you want, also you can use the purple toothbrush if you want; it's Jack's." Ianto said in a tone that Gwen wasn't sure was serious or mocking.

When Gwen re-emerged from the bathroom Ianto was in bed again, face down under the covers. He looked exhausted as he lay there unmoving, Gwen trying to tiptoe out the room, clothes clutched to her chest.

"You know that's why Jack stays round here." Ianto's voice startled Gwen slightly but she turned back to him.

"What?" Gwen questioned, taking a half step towards the bed as Ianto's eyes flickered open.

"He doesn't like being alone anymore. That's why you came round tonight, you didn't want to be on your own either." Gwen blushed, shaking her head slightly, trying to deny it.

"It's ok. I ask Jack to stay because I don't like being alone anymore either." Ianto paused as he shuffled in the bed, sitting up slightly so there was room for Gwen to join him. Gwen hesitated before it suddenly dawned on her how open Ianto was being. She didn't know if it was due to sheer exhaustion or the fact they had become so much closer since Tosh and Owen had left but she liked this softer, more open side to Ianto that she rarely glimpsed. She perched tentatively on the bed.

"That's how Jack and I started, because I couldn't bare being alone after Lisa and Jack was just looking for respite from the never ending loneliness of his existence."

"I worry that one day I'm going to wake up and you're going to be gone as well. Or Rhys will get caught in the crossfire again and this time he won't come back to me, and I don't think I could handle that Ianto." Gwen admitted, tears welling in her eyes as she settled back into the pillows, pulling her knees up to her chest so she could tuck her cold feet under the duvet. She pulled the oversized t-shirt down over her knees in an act of comfort as Ianto's hand reached out to cover her own.

"We'll always have Jack though." Ianto admitted rather sheepishly.

"Yeah, but he's not always going to have us." The words were out of Gwen's mouth before she had a chance to process them, leaving her and Ianto to sit in solemn contemplation for a long moment.

**Friday 8th August 10.53pm**

Jack flicked the light off in the kitchen, moving out to stand in the hallway as he listened to Ria shuffling about upstairs. He hoped she hadn't woken Ianto, although he doubted the end of the world would wake him considering how exhausted he was. Jack moved down the hallway, knocking on the living room door before pushing gently on it, expecting to find Gwen fast asleep on the sofa. He was surprised to find the living room empty though, the standard lamp in the corner still on and the curtains still open. Jack moved to switch the lamp off before he tiptoed quietly up the stairs, missing the seventh step that always groaned vulgarly under his weight. He pushed open Ianto's door, guessing that Gwen had maybe decided to take a shower, but he couldn't hear any water running as he let his eyes adjust to the dim light in the room.

**The sight that met his eyes made his heart swell. Ianto and Gwen were both nestled under the duvet facing each other as if they had been in the throws of conversation before exhaustion had got the better of them. He leant against the doorjamb of Ianto's bedroom secretly wishing he could crawl under the covers beside them. He couldn't though; he knew Ianto's bed wasn't really big enough for three grown adults nor did he wish to disturb them. He eventually crossed the threshold, retrieving the sheets, blankets and a spare pillow that was throw down on Ianto's side of the bed. He hesitated, watching Gwen and Ianto's relaxed features in sleep. He sighed with contentment, happy that he still had them both before he bent towards Ianto, his lips brushing Ianto's forehead. He stirred slightly but didn't wake as Jack rounded the bed, kissing Gwen on the brow as well. Gwen didn't even so much as stir. Jack took one last longing look at them before he left Ianto's bedroom, trudging back down the stairs to make himself comfortable on Ianto's couch.  
**


	3. Chapter 3

**AUTHOR NOTES**: You know that drama I was talking about... Well this is only the beginning... hides Also thanks to all of you that have come back for more Finn story telling. ;) I hope you won't be disappointed! And someone was asking about Bunny Owen - Finn's five now so Bunny Owen would have been named long before Ianto ever met Owen and I assume he was the one who named him since he was the one who bought Finn the Bunny in the first place! ;)

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**Saturday 9th August 7.08am**

Ria was heavy footed down the stairs the next morning. She felt uncomfortable and had finally given up on sleep after tossing and turning for the last couple of hours. It was only 7 o'clock but she could hear the dulcet sounds of Pocoyo in the living room.

She pushed open the door expecting to find a disgruntled Gwen watching cartoons with a five year old, but she was surprised to find Jack instead.

"I didn't hear raised voices last night." Ria commented as she came into the room and leant against the back of the sofa.

"Should you have?" Jack asked, shifting slightly with Finn still on his knee so he could see Ria.

"Well when you sleep on the couch there's usually some argument involved."

"Gwen fell asleep on the bed, I didn't want to wake either of them." Jack supplied, turning back to the television.

"Does her husband know?" Ria teased. Jack turned back to regard her, a wry smile on his face.

"I don't think Rhys will mind. Now if I'd been the one sharing the bed with her it might have been a different matter."

Ria laughed, rolling her eyes at Jack before she was clutching at her stomach as she felt the baby kicking.

"I swear this one's trying to kick it's way out of me. It wouldn't let me sleep last night for kicking." Ria complained, rubbing her stomach in an attempt to lull the baby.

"Maybe feeding it will keep it quiet. Do you want anything Jack? Cup of coffee? Toast?"

"Cup of coffee would be good, but I'll get it, you sit and watch Pocoyo." Jack suggested, already trying to move Finn so he could get to his feet.

"No, it's fine. I'll get it; I need to walk about a bit. What about you munchkin? You want some juice and a bit of toast?" Ria turned her attention to her son who was busy dancing, mirroring Pocoyo and Pato as they too danced on screen.

"Please." Finn replied, nodding enthusiastically. "Apple juice." He added as an after thought.

Ria chuckled before she bent over the couch and kissed Finn on the head before exiting the living room. She met Ianto coming down the stairs looking rather drowsy.

"Mention the word coffee in this house and your ears prick up." Ria teased her brother. Ianto did nothing but groan in reply as he followed her into the kitchen, his feet dragging on the linoleum. He flicked the switch on the kettle, opening the fridge to retrieve the milk before he left the kitchen again, on autopilot as he moved into the living room.

He stopped short in his tracks as he found his nephew and Jack up in the middle of the living room dancing together as Ellie, Pato and Pocoyo did the same thing on TV. He blinked a couple of times as if this was entirely normal before picking up his phone and the charger as Gwen appeared in the living room doorway.

"Morning." She sung cheerily, laughing when she caught sight of Jack and Finn dancing in the middle of the living room. She watched as Ianto shuffled by her, eyes slightly glazed looking as he grunted at her before hefting himself back upstairs again.

"He's not a morning person." Jack clarified, sitting back down on the couch with Finn now that the Pocoyo episode was over.

Gwen nodded in understanding before she joined them on the couch.

"Sorry about last night Jack, we both just seemed to conk out. You should have just woken me, told me to shift my arse." Gwen apologised, combing her fingers through her long tresses to try and put them in some semblance of order. Jack shrugged as he watched Finn flicking between the CBBC channel and the CITV channel unsure of what to watch when Jack knew he was really looking for Thomas the Tank Engine.

"You were both tired, and I didn't mind sleeping on the couch. Just as long as Rhys doesn't find out you spent the night in another Welshman's bed." Jack joked, watching as a blush crept up Gwen's neck onto her face.

"Jealous are we?" Gwen teased in return.

"What have I got to be jealous of, I know who brings me my coffee first in the mornings." Jack grinned just as Ianto shuffled into the living room with two cups in his hand, handing one to Jack as he slurped at the other one before he plonked himself down in the chair. He was turfed out of the chair a moment later as his sister came back into the living room, handing Finn a slice of toast and a cup of juice before kicking Ianto with her foot to move him from the chair.

Ianto grumbled as he pulled himself to his feet before sitting down on the floor resignedly, leaning back against the side of the sofa beside Jack. They were now watching Bob the Builder, Finn chewing noisily on his toast, dropping crumbs in Ianto's hair.

"Careful you." Jack reprimanded, reaching out to brush the crumbs out of Ianto's hair.

"Sorry Uncy Yan." Finn apologised round a mouth full of toast, not taking his eyes off of the television.

Gwen watched them all with fascination. She watched Ianto slumped on the floor with a mug of coffee dressed in his dressing gown, hair ruffled slightly as he yawned, unable to articulate properly; Jack in pyjama bottoms and a t-shirt, a little boy in his lap as he watched morning cartoons with a content look on his face. It was so unlike anything Gwen ever witnessed between them at work, it was almost unnerving to see it up close, it was so domestic that it gave Gwen the hope for the first time that after losing Tosh and Owen, everything was going to be okay.

"I'm just going to go give Rhys a call." Gwen announced, pulling herself to her feet and disappearing back up the stairs to Ianto's bedroom where she had left her phone on the nightstand.

"How do you fancy going to the park today munchkin seen as it's a nice day?" Ria asked as she took the empty juice cup from Finn who was now climbing down from Jack's lap and crossing the room to retrieve his train set.

"Yeah. Can Uncle Jack and Uncy Yan and Gwen come too? And we can play on the swings and go for ice cream?" Finn asked excitedly, turning to look at his mother before following her out of the living room into the kitchen.

Ianto could hear Ria's dulcet tones telling Finn that they had to work and Finn protesting that they always worked. Ianto had the tendency to agree on that matter. He drained the dregs of his coffee before pulling himself awkwardly to his feet.

"I'm going for a shower." Ianto told no one in particular, but since Jack was the only one still in the living room he took it to mean Ianto was addressing him.

"Want some company?" Jack asked, switching the television off and making to follow Ianto up the stairs, a sly smile on his face now.

"I need to wake up Jack." Ianto protested.

"I know, that's why I offered my company." Jack answered, still trailing Ianto up the stairs.

"You don't want me fired do you? 'Cause my boss will be angry if I'm late for work." Ianto complained as he pushed into his bedroom, noting Gwen as he moved towards the bathroom door.

"I'm sure your boss will be understanding." Jack replied, grinning wolfishly as he followed Ianto over the threshold of the bathroom.

"I'm sure he will." Ianto answered as he shut the bathroom door behind them, locking it.

"You there love?" Rhys asked down the phone when Gwen didn't reply. She was too busy staring at the now closed bathroom door and the giggling coming from behind it before the water in the shower started running. Gwen didn't want to know.

"Yeah, sorry sweetheart." Gwen replied, stepping out into the hall before it left her with a permanent imprint on her brain.

** Saturday 9th August 11.42am**

Jack stopped mid-sentence as Ianto's phone started ringing. Ianto gave him an apologetic look as he fished the phone out of his jacket pocket, frowning down as the name Ria blinked up at him.

"It's Ria, I better," Ianto motioned to the phone as he pulled himself to his feet. "Might be the baby."

Ianto slide the phone open as he started walking towards the door of the conference room.

"Hello?"

"You know I sometimes wonder if I'm in charge anymore." Jack voiced huffily as he sat back down in his chair, watching Ianto as he stood in the corridor.

"We humour you really." Gwen replied, patting Jack affectionately on the arm.

"Ria calm down I can't understand you, who's gone missing?" Ianto said, trying to placate his sister somewhat as he started pacing back and forth outside the conference room. Jack frowned, leaning forward slightly in his chair as he watched all the colour drain from Ianto's face as he stopped mid-stride.

"Ria where are you?" Ianto asked, no emotion in his voice now as he came back into the conference room, retrieving his jacket before walking back out again.

"Ianto?" Jack called after him, pulling himself to his feet.

"Ok just stay put, I'm coming." Ianto's voice had a slightly hysterical edge to it now.

"Ianto? What's going on?" Jack called again, now following Ianto as he started jogging through the main area of the hub, moving over to his desk in search of his keys.

"Keys, I need my car keys. Jack, where the fuck are my car keys?!" Ianto yelled, pushing things off his desk now in a desperate attempt to find his car keys. Important looking papers fluttered to the floor of the hub, pens clattering down beside them.

"Ianto, what's happened?" Jack asked, a slight hysteria to his own voice as he grabbed hold of Ianto's arms to stop his frantic search.

"He's gone. He's missing. Or taken. Or something. I don't know. I just need to get to Ria." Ianto explained, not looking at Jack but looking wildly round the hub for his keys.

"Who is?" Jack asked, slightly calmer this time.

"Finn, Jack! Something or someone has taken Finn!" Ianto all but spat in Jack's face, finally looking at him. There was a moment's heartbeat before Jack was moving away from Ianto into his office.

"I'll drive." Jack answered calmly, already coming back out his office, coat swishing behind him and the SUV keys in his hand as Gwen suddenly appeared beside Ianto, pulling her own jacket on before she took Ianto's hand reassuringly, leading him to the garage.

** Saturday 9th August 1.09pm**

Ianto tried to swallow down another sob but it was getting harder the more he tried to keep his emotions in check. Ria was sobbing openly now into Jack's shoulder as the police tried to question her. Gwen was talking furtively with Andy by one of the police cars and Ianto couldn't keep it in any longer. He slipped away, disappearing behind the nearest tree in the park, his stomach now convulsing with the effort to keep his emotions in check. He let a chocked sob pass his lips, trying to muffle it with his hand but it just rebounded on him making him gag.

That mornings breakfast landed in a rather undignified heap behind the tree as he felt tears running down his cheeks, his face crumpling. He tried to pull it together, tried to be strong, knew he had to be for his sister, knew he couldn't afford to fall apart now when he had his nephew to find. He couldn't help it though. His worst fear had been realised. His home life had crashed rather dramatically with the world of Torchwood.

Gwen had watched Ianto disappearing behind the nearest tree over Andy's shoulder, she was too busy watching for Ianto re-emerging to realise Andy was still talking to her.

"Earth to Gwen." Andy called, waving a hand in front of her face. "Hello?"

"What?" Gwen snapped, blinking rapidly.

"Oh you're paying attention now are you?" Andy asked sarcastically.

"Sorry Andy, what were you saying?" Gwen shook her head, trying to focus on her old partner.

"I was just asking if this was all in your hands now?" Andy prompted, crossing his arms in front of his chest and puffing it out slightly as he caught Jack glancing over at them.

"Why would it all be in our hands?" Gwen asked, frowning and shaking her head slightly in bemusement.

"Well I thought seen as it was something to do with one of yours and after Flat Holm and all those missing people," Andy trailed off, the anger that had been present in his features dispersing into scared since Gwen was now glaring at him.

"So you don't think its just missing persons?" Gwen asked, ignoring Andy's comment about Flat Holm.

Andy shrugged. "Well spooky seems to follow you lot about like a bad smell."

"Just let me know if you find anything." Gwen finished the conversation abruptly, a hand patting his shoulder before she was stepping round him and crossing the park towards the tree Ianto had disappeared behind. She passed a confused looking bobby holding police tape like he was unsure what part of the park to cordon off since there was no body and no physical evidence that anything had happened; anywhere.

She saw Jack giving her significant glances, Ria still clinging onto him but she ignored him, slowing slightly as she reached the tree. Her hand reached out and touched the bark as she stepped over tree roots, rounding the breadth of the tree to reveal Ianto letting out wet hacking coughs into the ground as he sobbed profusely.

"Ianto?" Gwen questioned softly as she placed a hand on his back. He straightened up stiffly like someone had shoved a broom handle up the back of his jacket, wiping furiously at his eyes as he tried to contain his sobs. He turned to her, trying to give her a reassuring smile but something in him broke again at the sympathetic look on Gwen's face. Gwen reached out for him, pulling him towards her as pained sobs wracked his body again. Gwen could feel tears wet on her neck as Ianto clung onto her like a child needing comfort, hands clutching wildly at the back of her jacket. Her own hand cradled the back of Ianto's head to her shoulder, the second one holding the rest of him close to her body as if sheer physical contact would make everything okay again.

If they didn't find Finn though she couldn't imagine anything making everything okay again; for any of them.

"He was just there, feeding the ducks with me, and then gone." Ria chocked out through hiccupping sobs so the policeman taking notes had trouble understanding her. Jack still had his arms around her as she clung onto the front of his coat but he was busy watching the tree both Ianto and Gwen had now disappeared behind.

"Did you see anyone in the area Miss?" The policeman was asking Ria now. Jack saw the brief hesitation before she was shaking her head, finally getting herself under some sort of control.

"I only turned my back for a second." Ria whispered, blame evident in her voice. Jack tightened his grip on her briefly before he noticed Gwen and Ianto had reappeared from behind the tree.

"Ianto!" Gwen was calling after him as he took off running through the park towards the SUV. Gwen made to go after him, but was too slow, the engine of the SUV already gunning before speeding off past the Castle and out of sight down past the Millennium Stadium. Jack watched him go with wide eyes, giving Ria's shoulders one more squeeze before he was heading over towards Gwen who was now fishing her phone out her pocket, presumably trying to call Ianto.

"What happened?" Jack was asking her as she pressed the phone to her ear, willing Ianto to answer. She turned her gaze towards Jack, eyes boring into his a disbelief sparkling in them due to what he was asking.

"He's lost his nephew Jack, where do you think he's gone?" Gwen bit out in annoyance, already redialling Ianto's number, but knowing deep down it was useless.

Jack worried his lip, staring down Duke Street where the SUV had disappeared out of sight. He wanted to be doing something as well, but this was a police matter. Wasn't it?


	4. Chapter 4

**AUTHOR NOTES**: Right, that Hate-mail you all want to send me. Please forward it onto: Erin Giles, Arse-end-of-nowhere-Wales, Angstville. I'm scared to post Part 5 if I'm honest...

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**Saturday 9th August 5.39pm**

"Been looking everywhere for you." Jack said softly as he sat beside Ianto in the empty church.

"Well you found me." Ianto replied mock-cheerily, not even looking at Jack. An uncomfortable silence descended between them as they listened to the rain hammering down on the roof of the church.

"Helen called me, said you stopped by Flat Holm." Jack eventually broke the silence, wanting to reach out to Ianto but instead put his hands on his knees, clasping and unclasping them.

"She was worried about you after you'd searched frantically through all the rooms you just left. Said you weren't your usual polite self." Jack continued, trying to get Ianto to say something, but Ianto remained stoic.

"Have you been here since?" Jack prompted.

"Some of the time." Ianto replied eventually. Ianto was pulling himself to his feet now, moving out the pew. Jack got up to follow but Ianto turned back to face him, putting a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

"I need to be on my own for a bit. I've got my phone." Ianto said, tone void of any emotion before he was walking up the centre aisle in the church, his dress shoes echoing off the tiled floor. Jack sat down in the pew and heard the clatter of the church door opening and closing interluded by the harsh sound of rain on tarmac before Jack was alone. Jack bent his head towards his clasped hands until his forehead was resting on the back of the pew in front of him.

"Are you okay?"

Jack was startled by the voice in such close proximity to him, his head snapping up to be met with the view of, what he presumed was the vicar, looking down at him, concern evident in his eyes.

"Sorry Father, I was just thinking." Jack replied, getting to his feet to move away.

"No, it's fine I just was wondering if you wanted to talk about what was troubling you?" The preist prompted, a hand on Jack's shoulder now, encouraging him to sit back down. Jack hesitated.

"I was just looking for my friend, but he's gone now." Jack admitted before attempting to move away again. He'd never felt very comfortable in churches.

"You're a friend of Ianto's then?" The Father was asking as Jack stopped mid-stride, turning back to the elderly looking pastor. Jack nodded hesitantly.

"He's a good lad, comes when he can on a Sunday." The Father said without prompting, happy to talk now he'd found some common ground with this stranger in his church.

"I usually see him once a week whether it's five minutes or a whole service. He's been coming more and more often recently though." There was a pause as the man took in Jack's appearance, apparently putting two and two together.

"You must be Jack?" The Father asked, taking Jack by surprise before he was holding out his hand towards Jack.

"Father Bowen."

Jack took his hand, shaking it surely. "Jack Harkness."

There was another lull before Jack was sitting back down in a pew again, pulling his coat about him in an act of protection.

"How long have you known Ianto?" Jack asked eventually.

"Oh, since he was a lad. Rona used to bring all her young'uns to church on a Sunday. I thought he'd lost his belief when he was about fifteen. I used to hear about how he was getting on from Rona, then one day he turned up with her again, all grown up like." The Father reminisced before he was sitting down beside Jack.

"It was like he'd had a personality transplant. Not the cheeky young boy I remember, far from it in fact. Rona told me he'd lost his girlfriend in that disaster at Canary Wharf." Bowen said sadly, looking down at his own clasped hands before glancing across at Jack who was listening intently.

"I'm glad to see some of that cheekiness seeping back in though this past year." Bowen smiled and caught Jack smiling back at him.

"Yeah." Jack nodded, before he was talking.

"We lost some close friends not long ago and I'd never realised how much a rock Ianto is until it happened. He's lost so many people, and he's still so young. I know his shoulders are broad, I just worry about him sometimes." Jack admitted, still staring resolutely at his hands. There was a pregnant pause before Jack looked up at Bowen.

"I sometimes worry what I'm going to do without him." Jack said, staring intensely into the Father's eyes for a long moment before he was looking up at the candles flickering down the front of the church.

"Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle." Father Bowen replied eventually. Jack didn't say anything. He wasn't religious and at the moment he found it hard to take comfort in the Father's words. He bit back his witty retort though, because he knew deep down Ianto still believed in the words of a man who couldn't possible hold his fate in the palm of his hand – he'd seen too much, like Jack. But the words were comforting to Ianto and Jack now tried to find some comfort of his own, something that had been wearing thin for a long time.

**Saturday 9th August 7.25pm**

Thunder rumbled somewhere in the distance, sheets of rain lashing down onto the gravel in the Roald Dahl Plass that soaked any bugger stupid enough to go out into it within seconds. Ianto didn't know how long he'd been out in the torrential weather blowing in from the Irish Sea, and he quite frankly didn't care. He was sure that his watch was broken it was that water-logged though. Ianto was reminded of something his mother always used to tell him when he came home from school soaking wet in nothing but his school shirt. '_Runs off when it gets to the skin.'_

A young man hurried past him, head bent against the wind and rain, a confident stride in his step that said he was in a hurry to get to his destination.

"Excuse me." Ianto tried to get his attention, falling instep with him and thrusting the photograph he had in his hands within eye level.

"Do you recognise this boy?" The man didn't even so much as cast a cursory glance over the photograph before he was shaking his head and ploughing his way on through the night storm. Ianto was fed up now. His hands were red raw and numb, his teeth were chattering and he could barely see for raindrops hanging on the end of his eyelashes.

"Hey!" Ianto called as he grabbed the young man by the arm, pulling him back and shoving the photo in his face.

"Look at it. Do you recognise him?" Ianto kept his death like grip on the man's arm until he shook his head reluctantly.

"No, sorry mate." Ianto grudgingly let him go before he converged on a group of girls tottering across the Plass in high heels, jackets held over their heads to keep off the rain even though they were already soaked beyond salvation.

"Have you seen this boy?" Ianto asked, holding up the photo as he blinked through his sodden eyelashes. To their credit the girls actually stopped and properly looked, though whether it was their maternal side or their desire to see the young Welshman out of the wet suit was debatable.

"Oh no, did he run away from home?" One of the girls cooed, actually taking the picture out of Ianto's hands to look.

"Someone took him." Ianto's voice cracked slightly as he reached out for the photo. "Have you seen him?"

All four girls shook their head sadly. "Sorry, love. Hope you find him though." And with that they were all tottering off again down to Mermaid Quay. Jack saw Ianto's face crumple slightly on the CCTV before he was collaring an elderly couple that were making their way to the ballet at the Welsh Millennium Centre.

"How long's he been out there now?" Gwen asked, handing Jack a coffee, which he immediately placed down on his desk.

"Too long." Jack voiced as he grabbed his coat from the stand and made for the invisible lift. When he emerged on the topside Ianto was busy chasing a group of Japanese tourists across the Plass who were ignoring him, thinking he was trying to sell them something and not just looking for his lost nephew. Jack strode straight towards him, causing Ianto to turn towards him purposefully.

"Have you seen-" Ianto stopped mid-sentence, suddenly realising who he was talking to.

"Come to help now have we?" Ianto asked sarcastically, starting to turn away from Jack to regard a couple that were walking their way.

"Excuse me, have you seen this boy?" The woman paused briefly to look at the photo before shaking her head and ducking back under the umbrella her husband was holding.

"Ianto you need to come inside, you're soaked through." Jack encouraged, following Ianto as he moved towards a young businesswoman.

"No what I need to do is find my nephew." Ianto ground out as he thrust the photo into another person's face.

"Ianto making yourself ill is not going to help Finn." Jack called, continuing to follow Ianto who was now ignoring him, desperately shoving Finn's photo under anyone's face that would look.

"Ianto." Jack stated calmly, grabbing a hold of his arm and spinning him round when Ianto ignored him.

"Ianto, please. Just come inside for a bit until you warm up and dry off. Maybe something to eat as well." Jack coaxed, running a hand up and down Ianto's arm reassuringly. Ianto hesitated, looking like he was going fly off the handle again.

"Please, come inside for a bit and I'll come back out with you later on. We'll go up to by the Castle again, see if anyone saw anything." Jack encouraged, looping an arm round Ianto's back and leading him back towards the invisible lift before he had a chance to protest.

Gwen was already stood at the bottom holding a blanket, which she bundled around a now shivering Ianto. Jack rubbed at his back as Ianto stepped off the lift on shaky legs, leading him towards his office.

"Come on, you need a warm shower."

**Saturday 9th August 8.49pm **

"Thanks." Jack whispered politely as he took the mug Gwen offered him, his eyes never leaving Ianto's still form which was now laid out on the couch. Gwen tugged on his arm slightly, pulling him away from the main area of the hub into his office.

"Did you give him something?" Gwen asked abruptly. Jack feigned ignorance before he nodded uncomfortably.

"Good." Gwen agreed, catching Jack slightly of guard before she was ploughing on into the real reason she'd dragged Jack in his office.

"Andy called me while you were seeing to Ianto. Apparently four other kids have gone missing today." Gwen said softly, leaning on Jack's desk as he took up his seat.

"So what are we thinking? A gang of some sort?" Jack pondered, clutching defensively at his coffee.

"I don't know. Andy thinks it may be one of our 'spooky doos'. Apparently the mother of the second child said she saw her dead brother before she felt her son pulled from her grip. When she turned back her brother was gone along with her child."

"So what? Ghosts? It's still not really our thing Gwen." Jack answered. Gwen huffed out a disbelieving laugh.

"Jack, it's Ianto's nephew. I don't think he really cares if it's Torchwood related or not right now, what matters is finding Finn." Gwen stated firmly.

"You know what, I don't care if you don't want to help him, I do and I will because Ianto is as much a part of my family as Finn is his." Gwen slammed her mug down on Jack's desk, turning, ready to flounce off, but Jack already had a vice like grip on her wrist.

"You think I don't care Gwen? You think I'm not worried sick like Ianto as well?"

"Well, you sure hide it well." Gwen spat.

"I just don't want it be Torchwood related, I don't want." Jack gave an exasperated sigh before he sat back down again, letting go of Gwen's wrist and looking down at his unfinished paperwork.

"Ianto is the closest thing to family I've had in a long time. Finn calls me Uncle Jack." Jack sighed almost wistfully, swallowing painfully past the lump in his throat.

Gwen sighed, her anger dissipating, reaching out for Jack just as his phone started ringing.

"Hello?"

"Jack, thank god I've been at the police station all day, apparently there's other children gone missing and now I can't get a hold of Ianto, he's not at the house and he's not answering his phone. I called Dad but he's not been by there either." Rhiannon babbled down the phone.

"Ria, he's fine, he's at work with me." Jack reassured, moving round his desk slightly so he could see Ianto fast asleep on the couch, curled into a foetal position. He heard Ria let out a sigh of relief.

"Thank God." Ria breathed and Jack almost heard her sinking down into a chair in relief.

"Did the police have any leads?" Jack questioned. He already knew they didn't, he just wanted to make Ria more involved in finding her son. He didn't think he could deal with a pregnant woman as close to hysterics as Ianto was. He was surprised at how calm Ria was being though.

"No, nothing. But there's been four more children gone missing as well now, they think it's organised." Ria chocked slightly. "I can't believe someone would do this, why would they want our children?"

"I don't know, but we'll find them whoever they are, don't worry." Jack tried to soothe, his eyes still firmly fixed on the sleeping form of Ianto as emotion twisted a painfully knot in his stomach.

"We'll be back before midnight Ria, are you okay on your own until then?" Jack questioned, watching as Ianto huffed slightly in his sleep, turning his head further into the pillow.

"Don't worry about me Jack," Ria sounded almost light-hearted. "Just you do what you have to do and take care of yourself. I'll see you later." There was a click as she rung off and a moment where Jack listened to the dial tone. Gwen was still hovering by his shoulder, looking concerned.

"That woman constantly surprises me." Jack whispered so softly Gwen had to strain to hear him.

"Why?"

"She's lost her son today and yet she's telling me to take care of myself. She might never get him back Gwen and she's more worried about Ianto and me running ourselves ragged." Jack huffed out an almost hysterical laugh before he finally wrenched his eyes away from Ianto, going around the back of his desk and plonking himself down in his chair.

"Hope." Gwen whispered eventually when the silence had gone on too long. Her back was to Jack, replacing him in their vigil over Ianto.

"What?"

"She's got hope. Like Nikki Beven had before I took her to Flat Holm. She had hope that her son was still out there somewhere, that he was coming back to her eventually." Gwen finally turned towards Jack, her arms folded over the front of her chest.

"Ianto doesn't have that luxury working for Torchwood. He's not innocent anymore, but his sister still is, she's still got that hope and Ianto doesn't want her to lose it, that's what he's clinging onto. His sister's hope is the only thing that's going to drag him through this."

Jack could see tears in Gwen's eyes, but she refused to let them fall.

"We're going to find Finn, Jack, because I've seen Ianto when he's with his family and you, I've seen him at his true age, carefree, innocent and full of hope. And I don't want to see him lose that. If he loses that he's taking away my hope and what we're fighting for."

Gwen didn't bother to wait for Jack to say anything. She turned on her heel and disappeared off down the corridor to the boardroom, presumably to call Andy for more information, or pull up the missing children's reports, something to make her not feel useless in the situation. That was when Jack pulled himself to his feet as well, grabbing for his coat and picking up the slightly damp picture of Finn from the coffee table beside a slumbering Ianto. He watched Ianto breathing evenly for a moment before he was heading towards the invisible lift, ascending onto the Plass to take over Ianto's earlier job.

**Saturday 9th August 10.51pm **

It was some hours later before Jack saw a familiar figure walking across the Plass towards him.

"Jack!" Gwen called above the hammering rain, running to greet him as she pulled her coat tighter round her.

"Ianto's awake." She spoke calmly and Jack did nothing but nod in reply before turning back to the task at hand.

"Jack," Gwen spoke again, a hand reaching out to rest on his forearm that was clutching at the photo of Finn.

"Take him home." Gwen encouraged.

"And do what?" Jack called above the rain, confusion in his voice. "I thought you wanted me to find Finn, that's what I'm doing."

"You need to be with him!" Gwen replied indignantly. "He needs you right now! He doesn't need Captain Harkness or Head of Torchwood or the 51st Century flirt, he needs Jack. So go and just be with him."

Gwen waited for Jack to make a move or respond in some way but he continued to stare gormlessly at Gwen through the raindrops.

"You may not need him Jack, but he needs you." Gwen uttered before she was splashing across the Plass towards the car park at the Red Dragon Shopping Centre where she'd left her car that morning. Jack watched her go, every gear in his brain whirring loudly, but not loud enough to drown out the deafening drumbeat of his heart in his throat.

**Saturday 9th August 11.43pm **

Ianto read the note on the fridge for the millionth time.

_'Gone to Chris'. Just in case you come home anytime soon. Can't be alone right now. Sorry. Ria x'._

He could feel Jack hovering uncertainly behind him but he didn't have the energy to tell him to go or stay. One way or the other Ianto no longer had the energy to care.

"Maybe it's for the best." Jack said eventually, obviously referring to the note, making Ianto realise he didn't want to talk about it. He didn't want to talk about anything. He wanted to be doing something. He couldn't just sit about and wait for something to happen even though he knew he desperately needed sleep. He didn't want to think anymore either and it wasn't his brain he was thinking with when he spun around in his kitchen, grabbing Jack by his braces and slamming him back into the fridge so it rocked ominously. Ianto didn't notice, was too preoccupied with the fact he had his tongue stuck down Jack's throat, one hand on his crotch as the other started un-tucking Jack's shirt from his trousers. He was shocked when Jack's palms pressed flat against his chest, pushing him back so there was a reasonable distance between them.

"Ianto, I don't think that-" Jack started but Ianto was already forcing himself back upon Jack, fingers fumbling with Jack's shirt buttons as he tried to kiss him again. Jack's push was more forceful this time causing Ianto to stumble back slightly, grabbing onto the kitchen table for support.

"Ianto, this isn't you," Jack spoke calmly but forcefully. "Well it is you, but not now, not after everything." Jack stopped and took a deep breath before he looked back up at Ianto. He saw the pain and hurt reflecting back at him with a kind of despondent despair. Jack caved and moved to embrace Ianto in a hug but Ianto was side stepping him now, pushing Jack away from him.

"I don't want a pity shag." Ianto spat, moving round the kitchen table and leaving the kitchen. Jack heard the distinctive creak of floorboards as Ianto took the stairs two at a time before he heard Ianto's bedroom door slam. Jack let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding, a hand running down his face in frustration before he was turning round to face the fridge. He pulled Ria's note from the front of fridge, crumpling it up before throwing it into the bin by the back door. It left a child's drawing of a blue sheep in its wake, its orange eyes glaring out at him with a reproachfulness that made Jack uneasy. He tucked his shirt back into his trousers and re-did the buttons on it, smoothing down the fabric in a self-conscious manner. He glanced up at the ceiling of the kitchen as he heard the distinct sound of something being broken. He worried his lip, unsure whether to go up and check Ianto was okay or wait until he'd cooled off a bit. His head warred with his heart for a long moment before he sat down at the kitchen table listening to Ianto's movements upstairs.

**Sunday 10th August 2.50a****m **

It was the early hours of the morning before Jack dared to venture upstairs. Ianto had been quiet for the best part of twenty minutes now and Jack thought he had maybe worn himself out and finally crawled into bed. He found a small glow coming from under Ianto's bedroom door, knocking cautiously before pushing it open. Ianto was looking at him slightly wide eyed as if surprised to find Jack still here.

"Sorry about earlier." Ianto said quietly.

Jack shook his head in return, as if to say _'don't worry about it'_ before he sunk down onto the floor of the bedroom beside Ianto. He lent his back against the bed, his legs splaying slightly so that his right one lent against Ianto's left one that was bent to his chest. Jack's eyes roamed over the photo albums that were out of the floor in front of him.

He saw a picture of Gwen, Tosh, Ianto and Owen all huddled into a booth in a pub somewhere, clinging onto each other in a drunken happy haze of alcohol. One of Ianto's arms was slung round Owen's shoulders in a gesture of brotherly love that Jack would never have thought possible between Ianto and Owen – they had tolerated each other at best. Ianto's other arm pulled Tosh into his side so her head fitted snugly in the curve of his neck in an almost protective gesture. Gwen was at his other shoulder, her arms round all of them in an open hug that suggested at the closeness of the small group. It must have been taken while Jack was away with the Doctor because he has no recollection of the night.

He noted another photo that he remembers well. Him and Finn lent against the railings when they went to Devil's Bridge. Finn is giggling, as Jack's fingers seem to dance over his ribs, even in the still photo. Jack is laughing heartily himself and the picture has a fuzzy quality like the person holding the camera is also laughing.

Another photo reveals a younger Ianto surrounded by his siblings in what is undoubtedly a posed family photo. Ianto looks grouchy, dressed in shorts and t-shirt as Rhiannon tries to use her fingers to manipulate a smile onto her little brother's face. Ianto's mother is lurking in the background with a reproachful look on her face while her youngest kids squabble; the older one's looking on in silent antipathy.

Several other photos smile up at Jack from their 2D world, capturing moments both vividly remembered and instantly forgotten. Jack doesn't say anything to break the unearthly silence that has fallen over the unspoken memories, a sob breaking the quiet as it evades Ianto's defences. Jack reaches out an arm, placing it round the younger man's shoulders and pulling him into his side. Ianto's knees flop to the side over Jack's right thigh as he tucks himself round Jack's side, sighing into Jack's chest and breathing him in. Jack's hand rubs unconsciously at Ianto's back as his bare feet scuff the carpet in an attempt to get closer to Jack's reassuring presence.

"We'll find him, don't worry." Jack whispered into Ianto's hair.


	5. Chapter 5

**AUTHOR NOTES**: :hands out cookies and teddy bears and tissues: You'll all need them for this chapter. Also there will be a bit of a hiatus I'm afraid since I'm moving back to Wales this weekend. I've not left you on that much of a cliff hanger... Honest! :hands out more cookies:

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**Sunday 10th August 11.42am**

"This was defiantly one of the hot-spots." Jack said looking down at his PDA as he swept the street. "At least seventeen children have gone missing from this street alone, as well as a couple from down by Mermaid Quay. Gwen's checking out the one outside the Millennium Stadium but this seems to be the source for some reason." Jack confirmed before glancing up at one of the walls of Cardiff Castle across the street.

"Crowds maybe? Or the Castle? None of the children have gone missing from the castle have they?" Jack asked turning to Ianto who was fruitlessly searching the faces in the crowd for any sign of his nephew.

"Ianto." Jack prompted.

"None from inside the walls of the castle. If it was the Rift though everything would be central to the Plass but they seem to branch out from this end of Queen Street. The missing children have gone from as far north as Roath but they don't seem to extend beyond the city limits. Yet." Ianto eventually said rather forlornly as he caught sight of a group of police officers, a bunch of flyers in their hands that Ianto guessed were missing persons posters. They were stopping people and asking them questions. Ianto's stomach turned as someone passed him with a flyer that had a picture of his nephew on it.

"At least the police aren't completely useless this time." Ianto commented, sighing before he was looking back down at his own PDA, looking for any signs that there had been any recent rift activity in the area.

Jack glanced over at Ianto, worrying his lip for a moment. He wanted to say something to make it okay but there was nothing Jack could say that would make this situation all right so soon after losing Tosh and Owen. The only thing that would fix this would be returning Finlay. Jack's eyes cast over the dejected faces that were sadly shaking their heads in reply to police enquiry. The city didn't need so many missing children after the recent attack on the city. Cardiff's citizens were still recovering just like Jack's team and some days it made Jack want to say 'screw the universe'. But not today. Jack refused to lose anyone else today.

He moved away from Ianto slightly, surreptitiously scanning the surrounding area as commuters and shoppers and tourists alike swerved to avoid him. Ianto was moving in the opposite direction from Jack sweeping the area. He glanced up into the faces of passers by before he was doing a double take.

"Mam?"

Ianto blinked a couple of times as if he was seeing things, taking a step towards her, not noticing when someone barged into the side of him by accident. He was scared to blink in case the image of his mother smiling at him disappeared from sight. But she wasn't going anywhere, she was getting brighter, stronger, and closer to him so he could almost reach out and touch her and he wanted to laugh. Ianto wanted to laugh and sing because he suddenly knew that everything was going to be all right as his fingers brushed his mother's outstretched hand.

It didn't occur to him that she was dead, had been dead over a year now. Why would it when she was standing in front of him looking the picture of health, just the way he remembered her. Her short brown hair, greying slightly at the temples. Her glasses sitting squarely on her nose, looking down through them like he was one of her pupils, but there was that glint in her eye that seemed to spark to life in her every time she saw her children. He could almost taste the words 'Mummy's little boy' in the air and he wanted to tell her all the horrible things that had happened to him this last year. He could almost smell the lavender and feel the itch of the jumper she wore around the house that Nana had knitted for her before she'd died. He wanted to tell her all about Jack.

Ianto paused, a distant tug on his mind._ Where was Jack?_

"Did you say something?" Jack asked, turning towards the Welshman in the crowd, but he was gone.

"Ianto?" Jack called, swinging round in a small circle, eyes frantically searching the crowd for that crisp black suit and red shirt.

"Ianto?" Jack called again, louder this time as the PDA in his hand beeped loudly and Gwen was suddenly talking in his ear.

"Jack, huge rift spike down Queen Street outside Pizza Hut." Gwen's voice was mingled with static as Jack's eyes glanced over the Pizza Hut sign beside him.

"Are you two still down Queen Street?" Gwen was asking, but Jack was still looking frantically about for Ianto, grabbing at passers by in suits to look at them, trying vainly to locate Ianto.

"Jack? Ianto? You still there?" Gwen called over the coms., concern in her voice.

"He's gone." Jack stated simply, finally stopping in the middle of the pedestrianised street to just stare at the mass of Cardiff residents; not one of them Ianto.

"Who's gone? Jack, what's going on?" Gwen sounded slightly breathless now as Jack saw her approaching from St. John Street at a jog. He waited until she drew level with him and saw her too looking about for Ianto while he consulted his PDA, confirming his suspicions.

"Where's Ianto?" Gwen asked, a frown on her face as she tried to catch her breath.

"The Rift. It's taken him." Jack stated matter-of-factly, not looking at Gwen, scared that if he did he would see the look on her face that he felt in his heart; despair.

"Just like it's taken all those children."

**Sunday 10th August 12.17pm**

"So what now?" Gwen was asking, shrugging out of her jacket as she crossed over to Tosh's old computer. There was an optimism about her that Jack wished he found contagious.

Jack shrugged. "I don't know."

"There must be something. Rift patterns, we can predict the next spike and then, I don't know, send you in with a rope around your waist?" Gwen gave her own shrug, knowing she was clutching at straws but she didn't know what else to do – she point blank refused to believe Ianto was gone though.

"Gwen, there's nothing we can do, do you not remember the last time you tried to solve this?" Jack shot at her. It was a cheap shot he knew but he couldn't deal with Gwen's optimism right now; he didn't think he could handle it.

"So that's it is it?" Gwen asked, anger flaring up in her as she spun to face Jack.

"We give up on him?"

"What do you want me to do Gwen? Go and get my magic wand out the archives, wave it and suddenly Ianto will reappear along with all the missing children?" Jack asked sarcastically, flinging his coat from him onto the tatty old couch.

"You're unbelievable!" Gwen huffed at him, shaking her head. Jack just shrugged in reply, eyes downcast to the floor now.

"I'm not going to accept he's gone Jack. We're Torchwood. This is what we're good at." Gwen turned back to Tosh's workstation, bringing up windows of Rift readings that they had taken from when Ianto had disappeared as well as the missing children. There were a total of forty-two that had vanished now and Cardiff as a city seemed to have slumped into a deep depression.

"Tosh must have found something that we can use to find out where he is." Gwen muttered under her breath.

"Gwen there's infinite possibilities as to where Ianto is now, numerous dimensions, and planets and times. He could be anywhere. It's hopeless."

"Don't." Gwen ground out between gritted teeth before she was turning back to face Jack.

"Don't you dare tell me there's no hope Jack Harkness! And don't you dare give up on him!" Gwen had her fists balled at her sides like she was ready to lash out at Jack.

"You think he thought you were gone and never coming back when you left with the Doctor? He was the one that kept telling the rest of us you were coming back, so don't you dare tell me he's not coming home Jack!" Gwen yelled, tears in her eyes that she refused to let fall. Jack's own eyes mirrored hers as they stared intensely at each other, both of them refusing to back down. Jack hated to give her false hope, hated to get his own hopes up when he knew deep down it was hopeless but a part of him desperately didn't want to give up on Ianto, couldn't give up on Ianto.

"There's some reports down in the archives might help." Jack eventually said a little too sharply than was necessary before he turned away from her, heading down into what had once been Ianto's domain.

He heard the faint sound of the words 'Thank You' following him down the dank tunnels that held memories that pulled at Jack's heartstrings, refusing to permit him to let go of the belief that Ianto was never coming back.

_"Jack, I am not having sex with you in the archives, I've only just finished re-filing from last time."_

_"Spoilsport."_

**Sunday 10th August 3.24pm**

Jack's mouth felt dry as he dialled Ianto's house number. His fingers paused over the number 7 - the last digit - before he pressed the red button on his mobile and the screen went blank. He needed to tell Ria.

_'Ria, you know how your son went missing yesterday, well I lost your brother today.'_

Jack threw his phone down on top of a pile of papers on his desk. The weight was too much for them and they toppled sideways into Jack's favourite mug that was half filled with cold coffee where Ianto had left it that morning. It skidded over the edge of the desk, bouncing on the floor once before the handle broke off and a crack appeared down the side of the mug.

"Fuck it!" Jack swore loudly, kicking his desk so that it lurched forward a foot or so, papers gliding down to land on top of the puddle of cold coffee, soaking it up.Gwen appeared hesitantly in the doorway of Jack's office. Her eyes were red-ringed from crying over the useless Rift reports he had dug out, her mascara all smudged.

"Do you want me to call his sister?" Gwen asked. Jack knew she was trying to be helpful but he was so emotionally all over the place at the moment that he couldn't keep his anger in check.

"No. Just go home to Rhys. There's nothing you can do." Jack said rather sharply. Gwen hesitated, looking like she was ready to argue, ready to back Jack into a corner again but Jack watched as all the fight rushed out of her and she sagged in the doorway of his office. That was somehow much worse.

"Call me if-" Gwen left her sentence hanging and Jack just nodded, watching as she retreated out his office.

Jack waited until he heard the cog door rolling back into place before he picked up his phone again, dialling Ianto's house number and pressing call before he had a chance to change his mind. He listened to the rings with a building sense of dread in the pit of his stomach until a weary sounding Ria answered the phone.

"Hello?"

"Rhiannon, it's Jack."

There was a pause in which neither of them said anything, waiting for the other to speak until Ria broke the dreadful silence.

"Have you found him?" Ria sounded broken, dejected, resigned to some awful fate and Jack had to say something to stop her from thinking the worst.

"It's Ianto."

Jack's mouth was suddenly dry again, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth as he swallowed painfully past the lump in his throat. He blinked ferociously, turning away from his desk and the remains of his coffee cup to look at the brick wall behind it.

"Jack just tell me, please." Ria sounded desperate.

"He's gone. Something's taken him as well."

**Sunday 10th August 4.02pm**

"You're home early. Everything alright?" Rhys called out, muting the television as he heard the front door click closed quietly. He waited for the sound of feet coming down the hallway, waited for his wife to reply to him but nothing was forthcoming.

"Gwen?" Rhys called again, pulling himself to his feet and tentatively moving towards the living room door. There was no one in the corridor, but Gwen's shoes and jacket were by the front door now. Rhys frowned, making his way down the corridor and turning the corner into their bedroom. He stopped abruptly as he found Gwen stood in the middle of the bedroom, looking intently at a picture frame on the top of the chest of drawers."

Gwen love, what's up?" Rhys asked, hand running down the length of Gwen's arm before he was grasping at her hand. His gaze flickered to the picture frame that captured Gwen and her work colleagues grinning broadly at the camera. When he looked back at his wife he could see her mascara was all smudged and her eyes bloodshot as tears continued to make tracks down her cheeks.

"Hey, come here." Rhys was pulling Gwen into his arms, hands rubbing soothingly at her back as she started to sob, clinging onto him as she buried her head in his shoulder. He waited until she had calmed down some before he let go of her, leading her over to the bed and sitting down. He chucked the TV remote aside that he still had in his hands. He expected to have to prompt Gwen to tell him what was wrong but it suddenly all came blurting out like she couldn't keep it in even if she tried.

"All those missing children. They're being taken. By the rift." Gwen was speaking in short disjointed sentences as she tried to keep her sobs under control.

"And it took Ianto's nephew. And now its taken Ianto. And we can't get them back. We don't know how." Gwen took a deep breath, trying to sober herself slightly before she looked at Rhys properly.

"Once the Rift takes people it rarely returns them and when it does they're not the same." Gwen's eyes were shining with unshed tears and Rhys suddenly didn't know what to say or do.

He'd liked Ianto. A man after his own heart when it came to beer and rugby. They'd had a long chat at the wedding and the young man dressed in a suit had fulfilled none of Rhys' preconceived ideas about him. He'd even quelled Rhys' fears about Jack and Gwen when he'd cut in mid-dance to effectively openly proclaim his relationship with Jack. Rhys' had smiled to himself as he'd watched them - like Ianto was pissing on his territory to keep Gwen away. But he was gone now. And that just left his Gwen and Jack. The next logical thought was 'What if his Gwen was next?'.

Rhys could do nothing but pull Gwen close to his chest, his own heart aching for the loss and the thought that he could someday lose Gwen as well.

"If we get him back he won't be Ianto anymore. He won't make us coffee, he won't make me laugh, he won't tell me about his and Jack's exploits, he won't be our Ianto, and it's not fair Rhys." Gwen groaned, making a fist and hitting it off of Rhys' shoulder with rather more force than was necessary before she was sobbing again.

"It's not fair." Gwen whispered before she buried her face in Rhys' shirt again.

"I know love." Rhys voiced. It was the only thing he could think to say, because it was true. There was nothing about any of this that was fair anymore.

**Sunday 10th August 6.08pm**

Jack slipped into Ianto's house quietly, expecting Ria to be sat at the kitchen table waiting for him, but she was nowhere in sight. Jack had a nauseous feeling in the pit of his stomach as he looked in the living room and found her absent from there as well."Ria?" He called out in the docile house, hoping for a reply but not really expecting one. None was forthcoming though as he took the stairs two at a time, glancing in the spare bedroom to find it also empty, the bathroom door open to reveal abandoned clothes on the floor. He sighed as he pushed tentatively on Ianto's bedroom door, the dull creak of the hinges that needed oiling strangely comforting and familiar as he noticed the outline of a body laid out on the bed.

There was a brief moment of relief that threatened to overwhelm Jack, his head painting Ianto onto the bed with a serene look of contentedness to be curled back up in the confines of his duvet. Ria burst his bubble by snuffling into the pillow slightly, her large baby bump rolling into view. Jack noted the jumper she had on as not being her own, it wasn't even Chris'. It was Ianto's. The one that he wore when he'd had a particularly bad week. The cuffs were all pulled out of shape as was the neck, threads pulled on it making it slightly deformed, washed so many times it hung limply on Ianto's lithe frame.

The fabric was now stretched over Rhiannon's pregnant belly, the cuffs down past her hands as she buried her face in the pillow on Ianto's side of the bed. Her brow was furrowed even in sleep and Jack wished he could make it all right for her. He wished that he could just click his fingers and Finn and Ianto would just magically appear before him, alive and well.

Jack found himself taking a deep breath to try and quell the sobs that were rising in his throat. He'd been trying not to think about what he would do if Ianto and Finn were permanently gone. He'd been occupying himself all day, running around, looking at rift readings, anything to take his mind off the thought that Ianto and Finn had gone through the rift and were never coming back. Or worse, they would come back like Jonah, and Caroline, and Jules, and Earl, and all the others at Flat Holm.

Jack clamped a hand over his mouth as a sob broke free, bubbling over the surface of his façade as he turned from Ianto's bedroom doorway, desperate not to disturb Ria. He didn't get far though. He stumbled towards the bathroom, making it just inside the door before he was clutching onto the white porcelain of the sink, sobs breaking free from him, unbidden, unwanted. He needed Ianto's soft Welsh vowels in his ear now, telling him it was all going to be okay. He needed hands on his shoulders reassuring in their presence. He needed arms to hold him as he cried, no judgement or questions without answers.

He came crashing to the floor, his legs in a tangle beneath him as he cried into the bathrobe hung on the back of the bathroom door. It smelt like Ianto. It smelt of summer rain, coffee and cinnamon. He wanted to slap himself though, felt like he was giving up on Ianto, had already resigned the young man to being at the mercy of the Rift. But he couldn't help it when he felt so useless, so hopeless in the face of something indeterminable.He felt rather than heard the knock on the bathroom door, the wood vibrating against his cheek that was pressed into the folds of the black dressing gown.

"Jack?" Ria's sleepy voice came through the bathroom door, concern in her tone. Jack tried to pull himself together, lurching to his feet as he rubbed hastily at his eyes. He pulled the bathroom door open to reveal Ianto's sister stood on the landing, drowning in her brother's jumper.

"Sorry." Jack apologised, unable to meet Ria's eyes, apologising for so much more than just waking her.

"S'ok." Ria whispered, reaching out a hand for his arm, rubbing it slightly in reassurance before her petite arms were encircling him. Her face pressed into his chest as she squeezed him as tight as she could with the baby between them.

"We'll find them."

There was such conviction and confidence in Ria's shaking voice that it made Jack feel guilty for thinking anything different. He pressed a lingering kiss to the top of Ria's head, blinking back the tears that threatened to flow again.

"I know we will."


	6. Chapter 6

**AUTHOR NOTES**: Sorry this took so long to get up. Move went fine, just the internet didn't work when I got here... sigh All sorted now though, so we're back to our regularly scheduled angst! ;) Also apologies to everyone that I made cry. hands out more tissues

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**Monday 11th August 5.24am**

"Jack!"

Jack lurched awake almost falling off the sofa that he had fallen asleep on, rift readings and missing person's reports scattering to the four winds as he heard his name called desperately for a second time somewhere up the stairs. He stepped out into the corridor before bounding up the stairs two at a time.

"JACK!"

Ria was screaming now and Jack could tell from her voice that she was crying. He found her crouched on the bathroom floor clutching at her stomach and breathing rapidly.

"Something's not right." She groaned as she looked up at him through watery eyes. Jack didn't need her words to see that something was wrong; it was plainly obvious by the fact that the front of Ria's nighty was wet as was the bathroom floor. Jack's bare feet slapped on the wet floor as he finally entered the bathroom, kneeling down beside a distraught Ria.

"It's okay." Jack tried to soothe, rubbing a hand on Ria's back in reassurance.

"How do you know?" Ria sobbed, continuing to clutch at her stomach painfully.

"Ria," Jack insisted, tilting her chin up with his hand so that she could see into his eyes.

"Trust me, it's going to be fine." Jack repeated as calmly as he could. Trouble was he didn't feel calm - in fact he felt the complete opposite of calm. He kept thinking what would Ianto do, and that thought was clearly going to get him nowhere because whatever Ianto would do he would already be doing it.

"Let's get you a little more comfy and then I'll go call an ambulance okay?" Jack continued to sound reassuring as his heart beat increasing faster and louder against his ribcage, so much so he feared it would drown out his placating words. Jack pulled the towels from the towel rail, placing them down on the floor of the bathroom, moving the bath mat so it rested just behind Ria before he gently lowered her back onto the floor.

"I'm just going to get the phone from Ianto's room." Jack communicated, feeling Ria's hand tighten on Jack's for a moment as if she was scared he wasn't coming back.

"I'll be right back." Jack dashed out into the corridor, grabbing the sheets that he had used the previous night from the banister before running into Ianto's room, grabbing a pillow from the bed and the phone from the night stand in one swift movement.

"Jack!" Ria was crying out in pain again as he hurried back to the bathroom. He threw the sheets and pillows behind her back before shaking fingers were trying to press down on the button nine. The first time he pressed four nines; the second time he only managed two. It took him a third attempt before he was passed onto an emergency services operator with a thick Welsh accent. All the time Ria continued to cry on the bathroom floor, one hand clutching onto Jack's sweaty palm while his brain seemed to disengage from everything. He wasn't losing anyone else if he could help it.

**Monday 11th August 7.15a****m**

Gwen was awake when the alarm clock went off and her hand reached out mechanically to turn it off. Rhys shuffled up against her in the bed, his warm hands sliding round her middle to pull her close, his face burying in the crook of her neck. He seemed to know instinctively how she was feeling.

"Did you get any sleep love?" Rhys asked, voice still husky from sleep as his fingers pulled Gwen's fringe back from her delicate features.

"Not really." Gwen admitted sadly, continuing to stare at the patch of ceiling that was still slightly discoloured from when the flat above them had left the bath running one night. It had taken three days for their mattress to dry out and both of them had slept on a blow up bed in the living room they'd borrowed from Banana.

Rhys kissed the curve of her neck and her eyes fluttered slightly in bliss before she was rolling over to face him, her hand coming up to cradle his cheek.

"Don't ever leave me." She whispered, gazing intently into his eyes, her own sparkling with unshed tears. "Promise me you'll never leave me."

"I'm not going anywhere love." Rhys urged convincingly, his own hand coming up to cup the back of Gwen's neck. "I promise you I'm not going anywhere."

"Good." Gwen whispered before tears were brimming in her eyes and she was moving towards him to bury her face in his bare chest. Rhys just held her as she cried, a hand smoothing her hair down as he kissed it, the other one wrapping around her waist to pull her closer.

"If you want I'll stay home from work today with you." Rhys said after Gwen's tears had subsided. He could feel Gwen shaking her head against his chest.

"I need to find Ianto."

Rhys could hear in her voice that there was more than Ianto's safety riding on the ability to find him. Gwen's sanity hung in the balance. He could tell by the way her voice trailed at the end that she was fast losing hope and the guilt at lying in bed doing nothing last night was gnawing away at her inside. It was like when Tosh and Owen had gone. Rhys had felt so useless; All he'd be able to do was hold her when she cried and listen when she screamed and reasoned with her when she talked of leaving Torchwood, because for all Rhys hated Torchwood and everything it had done to them, it was Gwen's life now – it was his life.

He knew that Ianto and Jack meant as much to her as family. He'd seen the way they'd clung to each other at the memorial service they'd had for Tosh and Owen; had witnessed, without jealousy, the way Ianto had held her hand when they'd gone to speak to Tosh's grandfather and the way Jack's lips had lingered on her cheek a moment longer than was entirely necessary when they'd said goodbye. He'd also noticed as he glanced over his shoulder as he lead Gwen away the way Jack and Ianto had instinctively reached out for each other now they were alone. He'd witnessed the look in Jack Harkness' eye that spoke of too many losses, and the silent pact he made with himself that he would not be losing anymore.

**Monday 11th August 9.48am**

Jack was tired. A bone deep weariness had set about his shoulders now as he slumped in a blue plastic waiting seat in Cardiff Royal Infirmary's A&E department. He could feel his toes sticking uncomfortably to the inside of his boots since he'd had no time or thought to put on a pair of socks as they were bundling Ria into the back of the ambulance. They'd mistaken him for the father and for some reason neither Ria nor Jack had corrected them. He sipped thoughtlessly at his now lukewarm cup of coffee clasped between his palms, staring down at the green linoleum floor like it held the answer to all life's problems.

He almost jumped ten foot in the air when he felt his phone vibrating in his pocket. It was Gwen.

"Hello?"

"Jack? Where are you?" Gwen sounded as tired as Jack felt.

"At the hospital." Jack stated simply, idly reading a 'Please Give Blood' poster on the opposite wall.

"Ianto? Have you found him?" Gwen sounded hopeful.

"No."

Jack's voice sounded resigned to his own ears.

"It's Rhiannon, Ianto's sister."

Jack had no idea why he felt the need to clarify who Rhiannon was, Gwen knew, had met her only the other day when she'd come to stay at Ianto's. They'd cooked dinner and watched a film together. Had that really only been a couple of days ago?

"Is she okay?" Gwen prompted when Jack was not forthcoming with any information.

"Something to do with the baby." Jack replied, almost mechanically as he saw a doctor approaching him.

"I need to go. I'll call you back." Jack hung up as he heard Gwen protesting down the phone before he was standing up to meet the doctor face to face.

"I'm Doctor Omar. I was dealing with you wife this morning." He said, before motioning for Jack to take a seat again. Jack did so, watching hesitantly as Omar sat down beside him. He got an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach; doctor's only asked you to sit down if it was serious.

"We think that undue stress caused your wife to go into early labour, she told us that your son and her brother have recently gone missing."

Jack nodded. "Are she and the baby okay?"

"We had to do an emergency caesarean as it was too late to stop the labour. Your wife's body was so stressed that giving birth would have had a detrimental affect on her health. We're going to keep her in for a few days but she's in recovery now if you'd like to go and see her." Omar supplied, keeping eye contact with Jack at all times. Jack waited for news on the baby, but the pause in conversation went on too long and Jack had to ask again.

"And the baby?"

"The baby has been taken to the neonatal intensive care unit. She's premature so there's a high risk of infection and complications, but she seems to be a fighter so she's got a good chance of making it." Omar assured Jack, smiling warmly at him now.

"She?" Jack asked, a small smile on his own features now.

Omar nodded. "Congratulations Mr. Lloyd. You have a baby daughter."

**Monday 11th August 10.17am**

"Ria?" Jack called hesitantly as he stood uncomfortably at her bedside. Her head lolled towards him sleepily, eyes half open as she regarded him.

"Jack?" Ria whispered back, a hand reaching out for him almost pathetically. He grasped her hand out of thin air, encasing it in his larger one's before he was sinking down into the visitor's chair conveniently placed by the bedside.

"You gave me a scare there." Jack reprimanded, letting a smile pass over his lips as he watched her half lidded eyes blinking lazily up at him.

"Sorry." Ria replied, tears leaking from her eyes before she had a chance to contain them.

"I'm sorry." She sobbed as Jack reached out for the tissues beside her bed, getting up to dab at her eyes. She eventually took the tissues from him, wiping at her own eyes as she continued to cry.

"You've got nothing to be sorry for." Jack told her truthfully, a hand coming to rest over hers again.

"Have you found Finn and Ianto yet?" She asked him once she'd got her tears under control. Jack watched her for a long moment before he gave one swift shake of his head; he didn't trust his voice anymore.

It was a long moment before either of them said anything again, Jack thought Ria had drifted off to sleep, but he asked his question anyway.

"When Finlay disappeared, did you see anyone?" Jack questioned. "Anything?" He added as an afterthought.

"No." Ria replied tiredly, not bothering to open her eyes. "There was no one around apart from us and the ducks."

"Are you sure?" Jack pushed. Ria opened her eyes, looking at him intensely.

"Why?"

"Because you hesitated the other day when that police officer asked you, and I thought, maybe you saw something you thought was mad. That you passed off as your imagination or a trick of the light." Jack urged, he could see by the look on Ria's face that he was onto something.

"She was only there for a second when I turned around that I thought I was imagining it, but she looked exactly like she always did, so vivid and so real that she couldn't have possibly been a ghost." Ria babbled after a moment.

"Who did you see?"

"It was Mam." Ria whispered as if scared of the consequences of admitting she had seen her dead mother the other day in the middle of the park. Jack nodded, sitting back in his chair slightly in quiet contemplation.

"Ria?"

Jack turned towards the door of the ward, surprised to see Chris stood there. His hands were stuffed into the pockets of his suit trousers; his tie unknotted and suit jacket missing. Jack had the brief thought that he looked nowhere near as good as Ianto did in a suit.

"Sorry Jack, I had the nurses call him." Ria apologised before she even acknowledged Chris' presence. Jack straightened slightly in the visitor's chair. He still had hostile feelings towards Chris after everything he'd put Rhiannon and Finn through, and even Ianto. But he slumped again slightly as he saw a picture of himself mirrored in Chris' demeanour. He looked as dejected as Jack felt and he knew the reason Ria had called him. He was still Finn's father, had lost his child just as much as she had, and he was still the newborn baby's father too; even if he was a bastard.

Jack pulled himself to his feet, offering the visitor's chair to Chris, which he took hesitantly. He almost seemed scared of Jack, which comforted Jack somewhat.

"I need to go anyway." Jack said, leaning in to kiss Ria on the forehead. "World's a big place and I got a lot of searching to do before the day's out." Jack tried to make light-hearted of the situation but there was nothing that would lift his heavy heart short of finding Finn and Ianto again.

Ria attempted a half-hearted smile, her eyes trailing him as he disappeared out the room.

"Torchwood again." Chris commented, a resigned tone to his voice. But Ria knew there was more in that statement than he was willing to let on. Ria had the same thoughts, that life would have been so much simpler if Ianto had never gotten involved with Torchwood, but on the other hand they'd have never have had Jack in their lives now. It didn't stop Ria thinking _'what if?'_ though.

**Monday 11th August 11.42am**

"Jack?"

"What is it?" Jack asked into his phone as he trudged away from the hospital, his sweaty feet now squeaking against the inside of his boots.

"Are Ria and the baby okay?" Gwen asked down the phone, her voice sounding tinny and distant like she was somewhere in the depths of the archives.

"As well as can be expected." Jack replied rather curtly. He didn't mean to be sharp with Gwen but he was fed up and he'd reached snapping point. There was a long pause in which Jack could hear Gwen breathing down the phone.

"Was there something else you wanted?" Jack asked eventually when the silence had gone on too long.

"Are you coming back to the Hub now?" Gwen sounded almost scared. He could imagine her alone in the expanse of the Hub and he felt slightly guilty for leaving her alone so long.

"Yeah," Jack said, and he could almost hear the sigh of relief from Gwen's end of the phone. "Yeah, I'm coming back now."

"Good. I'll see you in a bit." Gwen sounded slightly cheerier before she hung up, leaving Jack alone again. He closed his phone and stuffed it back into his pocket, listening intensely to the squeak of rubber on tarmac, before he realised that was the only thing he could hear. He stopped in his tracks looking up and finally taking in the world around him to find the street deserted, which was odd for a Monday morning.

He watched as bits of paper fluttered down the empty street, missing persons notices stuck on every lamppost, every tree, every post-box and wall within his field of vision. He stooped to pick up one of the bits of paper that held a familiar picture of Finn smiling out at him. He turned the street corner and stopped outside a café, catching sight of the television in the corner, the news was on.

"Nearly a hundred children have gone missing from the city of Cardiff now. The police have declared it a national crisis and have no leads of the whereabouts of any of the missing children. An emergency conference was held at the town hall this morning, where police chief Roberts had this to say,"

Jack kept on walking, purpose in his stride now. This wasn't a police matter anymore, so he no longer cared what the police had to say. He was getting those missing children and Ianto back, even if he had to go through the Rift himself and get them**.  
**


	7. Chapter 7

**AUTHOR NOTES**: I'm having a bit of a writers fit at the moment - meaning I've written loads of this fic over the last week but I can't post any of it because it's all set after this bit which I can't seem to write due to it being actual 'plot' before we get back to the start (if that makes any sense what-so-ever). So um, this ain't the best chapter in my eyes but it's done what I was generally trying to achieve... maybe... just bare with me please! And I know you all will since you're such lovely people. Brain meet brick wall.

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**Tuesday 12th August 8.57am**

Rhys flicked the news on. It was hard to watch anything else when it dominated nearly every channel.

"Police are advising people to stay inside with their children. All schools within the Cardiff area have now been closed until further notice as,"

Rhys turned the television off, throwing the remote onto the coffee table in front of him. He didn't need second hand lies.

_"What I don't understand is what the hell he's doing here. You've been away for a week to god knows where and when you come back you've got some other man with you."_

_"Rhys for pity's sake I'm not sleeping with him, I work with him."_

_"That still doesn't explain what the bloody hell he's doing –" _

Rhys remembers a gasp escaping his lips as the young Welshman emerged back into the living room after using their shower. He remembers the haunted look on his face as he tried to smile through the obvious pain he was in, remembers the way Ianto tried to apologise for his presence, still insisting he's fine to go home, to be on his own, but Gwen's having none of it, and from the way Ianto holds himself Rhys is suddenly having none of it either.

Rhys remembers cooking dinner for the three of them as Gwen and Ianto belay to him a story that he now knows is a lie. He still doesn't really know where they were that week when Jack had gone missing, doesn't think he wants to know. In fact he knows he doesn't want to know, not when he woke up to Ianto screaming in the middle of the night and Gwen going to him.

_"It's just a nightmare pet."_

_"How can it be when I know it happened?"_

**Tuesday 12th August 11.42am**

Jack stared at the wall opposite him, looking but not really seeing. He'd been up all night collating Rift readings. He'd even been down to Flat Holm. He didn't know why now. He certainly hadn't been looking for hope in the destitute stories of the inmates. If anything they'd striped the last of it from him.

Gwen had been out to talk to several of the parents of missing children, all had similar stories of seeing dead loved one's before their children had vanished. Jack was sat above tunnels full of alien activity, of readings and history and reports but not one of them spoke of ghosts. He wondered briefly whom Ianto had seen, had been tempted by, because it was clear to Jack that these apparitions were the ones taking children, playing on their innocence that dead family members really could come back to life. He wondered if it had been Lisa.

He pushed that thought to one side when another one popped into his head. Is this how Ianto had felt when he had left with the Doctor? This hopeless feeling that a part of you was gone and never coming back? That there was no one there to be your safety net when you fell? The feeling that it wasn't going to be all right.

_"Did you mean what you said earlier?"_

_"I said a lot of things earlier."_

_"That you came back for me?"_

_"I always say what I mean."_

Jack's hands tightened slightly round the photo of him and Ianto he'd fished out of the old biscuit tin in his bottom desk drawer. He let a sigh pass through his parched and tired lips. He hadn't had caffeine in well over twenty-four hours, hadn't eaten anything either. He felt bereft inside.

_"Everything will be alright."_

_"You know that for certain do you?"_

_"You forget I know everything."_

Jack felt the ghost of a chuckle pass his lips, but it was short lived. He closed his eyes to find the visage of Ianto swimming before him, that smile of his that was to small but so warm.

"Jack?"

Jack's eyes snapped open as he heard the familiar Welsh vowels in his name, spinning round in his chair to find Gwen stood at his door, rather than the Welshman he had dreamt it to be.

"Gwen?" He replied, a hint of disappointment in his voice that he couldn't find the energy to mask.

"Andy's just called, says there's another girl gone missing, this time from her home. She was in the kitchen with her mother baking cookies before she was calling out for her Grandfather to help and then she was gone."

"Let me guess, Grandfather been dead for a while?" Jack asked, not needing Gwen's hesitant nod to know the answer.

"I'm going to go talk to them, Andy's still there."

"I've got something I want to check out myself. Give me a call if you find out anything new." Jack replied. Gwen nodded before she disappeared out the cog-door. Jack didn't move from his chair. His mind was blank. He didn't know who or where to turn to next but he wasn't about to tell Gwen that.

**Tuesday 12th August 1.13pm**

Ria stood at the glass window of the Neonatal Unit staring it at all the premature children contained in their incubators. She felt like she hadn't slept, felt like she'd been stood there all day just staring with unseeing eyes at her newborn child. She almost couldn't tell her child apart from the others, had barely seen her beyond a few minutes. She was a day old now and Ria had yet to hear her baby cry, had yet to hold her in her arms. She couldn't hold either of her children at the moment, didn't even have anyone to hold her, to tell her it was going to be all right. She felt silent tears slipping down her face as she remembered the last time she'd visited a hospital.

_"Come on, she'll be fine, she'll pull through."_

_"How do you know?"_

_"'Cause she's Mam, she's not going to leave us."_

Ria could still see the weary look in her brother's eyes as he held her close. She remembered how sure he had been when she knew in retrospect it had just been his denial working overtime due to the recent loss of his girlfriend. Like her he'd just been scared of the facts presented to them on a silver platter. She remembered how reassuring his presence had been though, how much conviction there was in his words and she wished now that he would tell her it was fine, that he and Finn were coming back and that the baby was going to pull through.

_"Mam's dead."_

_"What?"_

_"She died this morning Ianto, she was at Tesco, doing the shop for Sunday dinner."_

_Silence. No how. No why._

_"Was someone with her?"_

_"What?"_

_"Was someone with her Ria?"_

_"No. She was on her own."_

**Tuesday 12th August 2.35pm**

Gwen was stood outside the Starbucks in Mermaid Quay, staring in through the darkened windows past the closed sign. She'd got nothing more than fresh tears from the parents of the newest missing child. It almost made her grateful that her and Rhys hadn't had children yet, but she didn't want to think like that. What she wanted was a piece of chocolate decadence cake, was craving it in fact, but Starbucks was 'closed due to a family emergency'.

_"Come on, I'll buy you a bit of cake after the day you've had."_

_"What about you? What do you get for the shit day you've had?"_

_"Good company. And possibly a Marshmallow swizzle stick."_

Gwen tried to force a smile onto her face but she couldn't find the energy let alone the motivation.

**Tuesday 12th August 2.57pm**

Jack was crossing the expanse of the Hub towards his office when he caught a glimpse of something moving down in the autopsy bay. He stopped in his tracks, turning back and peering round the corner.

"Hello?" Jack called hesitantly, hand reaching for his gun.

_"I couldn't save him."_

Jack faltered on the first step as he heard her words resonating through the autopsy bay. A breath hitched in his throat as she came into view, smiling up at him from beside the table. She had on that green shirt that Jack had told her so often suited her so well. Her glasses were perched on the edge of her nose, her hair pulled back away from her delicate features, a few strands escaping to fall over her eyes.

"Toshiko?" Jack heard his voice break as he took a step hesitantly towards her, the smell of lilies pervading his senses as he unconsciously reached out for her. He felt his heart lift with every step he took closer to her, the autopsy room almost dazzling in it's appearance before there was a flicker of something inhuman on her face. It hit Jack full force then as he fell backwards up the stairs away from her.

"No." He shook his head wildly, scrambling up backwards. "This is wrong." He told himself, hands clutching at the railings as the room dimmed.

_"We need more." _Toshiko hissed at him, her voice taking on an eerie quality of someone who had not used their voice in a long time as she continued to reach out for him, moving up the stairs to follow him.

_"You would last forever." _Toshiko's lips curled into a cruel smile as she reached out for Jack again, but he had his gun out now, gripping it between shaking hands. He fired two shots, closing his eyes as the second one hit its target. Tears slipped freely down his cheeks as he listened, waiting for more words of malice coming from such an angelic voice, but none were forthcoming. He opened his eyes gingerly, taking in the empty autopsy room before he lay back on the steps, his gun clattering down them as tears continued to stain his cheeks. His gaze flickered to the bottom of the bed and the slightly pink tinge the grouting between the tiles still had before he closed his eyes again, listening to the frantic beat of his heart inside his chest.

**Tuesday 12th August 3.17pm**

Jack was still sat on the stairs of the autopsy room when Gwen returned, lacking in chocolate cake. He was clinging onto one of the poles that held the railings in place, a faraway look in his eyes as he stared at his gun that lay a few steps down from him.

"Jack?"

Gwen approached him like he was a spooked horse, scared that he would startle any moment, but he didn't seem to register her presence.

"Jack?" She tried again, placing a hand on his shoulder. He started, head snapping round to look at her. He had a wide-eyed look of fear on his face that scared Gwen, his eyes red-ringed from crying. Her stomach knotted painfully as she glanced down at the autopsy table, relieved to find it empty.

"What is it? What's happened?"

Jack shook his head, turning away from her now and pulling himself to his feet. He was almost grateful when the rift monitor bleeped at them for the umpteenth time that day. His brain was already putting two and two together though as he crossed to the machine, the words _'You would last forever' _haunting him.


	8. Chapter 8

**AUTHOR NOTE****S**: I know I'm sort of teasing you now over who or what it is that's controlling everything but I'm afraid I will continue to tease - for a bit at least. smiles wickedly Also that original estimate of about 35000 words? Smidge off... 'cause I'm kinda at that already. (although I've only posted 25000 so far)

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**Tuesday 12th August 3.24pm**

Jack turned the rift alarm off without thinking, ignoring whatever it was alerting them to. He didn't care now.

"Jack what's going on? What are you doing?" Gwen demanded, trying to see what he was pulling up on the screen. She saw rift reports flash before her eyes, saw equations and numbers, before one flashed up that she recognised.

"Jack, you can't. You can't do this!" Gwen was imploring, pulling on his arm to tug him away from the screen.

"Why are you doing this? This is ridiculous, you're desperate, and so am I, but this isn't even a last resort." Gwen pleaded, trying to put herself between Jack and the computer screens even as he reached to pull the gratings up, revealing miles of cables.

"Jack!" Gwen yelled, actually shoving him backwards so he stumbled into the coffee table. But it wasn't Jack that was drawing her attention now.

A figure was stood at the top of the autopsy stairs, that stupid smirk on his face that said he'd been up to no good. He had on that purple t-shirt underneath his lab coat that Gwen had loved so much - even wore it to bed when Rhys wasn't home.

"Owen?"

Gwen stepped forward hesitantly, a hand reaching out to him, to make sure he was there, that he was real. His smile grew brighter as she reached out to hug him, to pull him close to her. She could almost smell the formaldehyde barely concealed by the somewhat strong aftershave he wore.

Someone was tugging her away though, calling her name and before she had a chance to touch him something hit her full in the chest, knocking her back onto the grating. She let out a gasp of breath as the room was plunged back into a dull grey and she realised Jack was lying on top of her.

"Jack? What the hell?" Gwen stuttered, confused for a moment as Jack pulled himself off her and she continued to lie on the grate, a sudden emptiness filling her up inside.

"Who did you see?" Jack questioned as he pulled her effortlessly to her feet. She didn't question how he knew, just met his gaze levelly before she answered.

"It was Owen."

Gwen had tears in her eyes now as she glanced over Jack's shoulder at the entrance to the autopsy bay. There was no one there, no one beckoning to her with open arms for the hug she desired and desperately needed.

"I saw Tosh, she tried to take me, held out her hand to be, beckoning me to come with her." Jack admitted before he was moving back round Gwen to Tosh's old workstation.

"These apparitions that have been appearing to children, they're the ones that are taking them." Jack surmised.

"So what? They're being taken to Limbo?" Gwen asked, frowning, a confused look on her face as she spun round to face Jack.

"If you want to call it that." Jack shrugged, turning away from the computer to regard her again.

"It's another world, somewhere between living and dying and I'm guessing they need energy to survive in it, to move between worlds, that's why they glow so much when they appear to us. We're seeing the Rift and the energy they burn up to move through it, to move between worlds." Jack explained, but Gwen was still frowning.

"So they're taking children?" Gwen asked, almost incredulously.

Jack nodded. "More energy from them, more life still to live and easier to take. More accepting that their family member's are still alive."

"So why take Ianto?"

Jack hesitated, swallowing slightly, but his eyes not moving from Gwen's questioning gaze.

"He's fragile, fresh with grief and so much of it." Jack admitted almost sheepishly.

"Think about it Gwen, he lost all his colleagues at Canary Wharf, Lisa six months later, his Mum just after that and now Tosh and Owen. He smells like an all you can eat buffet to them."

"And you don't?" Gwen asked before she had a chance to stop herself.

Jack's face tried to remain impassive. "It just tried to take us didn't it?"

"But why now?" Gwen was questioning again. "Why after everything are they seeping through now, taking people, taking children? And just from Cardiff?"

"Kick us when we're down?" Jack asked rhetorically, shrugging before he was turning back to the bank of computers again.

"I'm not going to let them take anyone else though. I've got nothing but life to give. And they're going to get it." Jack spoke fiercely as he opened up Tosh's equations again that would allow them to open the rift before he was going back to pulling miles of cable out from under the grating.

"Jack you can't!" Gwen was back to pleading again, pulling the cables from his hands.

"You can't open the rift, not after last time."

"How else are we supposed to get them back?" Jack yelled, getting in Gwen's face, but she wasn't backing down.

"What so you won't open the rift to get all those other missing people back but now it's Ianto we're going to risk the whole world for him? You don't even know where he is Jack! You said so yourself!" Gwen was yelling back, almost spitting in his face she was that close to him.

"I'll come back with him!"

"What if you don't?" Gwen bit back almost immediately. "What if you go through the rift and you spend months, years, millennia searching for him? What am I supposed to do? Run Torchwood Cardiff by myself?"

"So what, it's okay for you to open the rift to get someone you love back?" Jack spat, but Gwen could see he was losing his resolve.

Gwen calmed herself slightly. "You don't know that opening the Rift is going to bring him back. What if you open it, you go through to find him and Abadan comes through again? Or worse? I can't save the world on my own Jack."

"How else am I supposed to get him back? I can't just sit around and wait for the Rift to spit him back out Gwen."

Gwen noted how quickly them had changed to him; she also didn't fail to notice the lost look in Jack's eyes.

"I don't know." Gwen admitted sadly, her voice barely above a whisper. She watched as Jack's jaw set before he was moving past her, grabbing his coat from the stand and pulling it on, knocking the stand to the ground in his wake.

"Where are you going?" Gwen called after him.

"Out." He replied rather gruffly as the cog door rolled shut behind him. Gwen sighed. She had won the argument, but it was a small and hollow victory. She wondered how many more people would disappear before she started thinking the same way as Jack.

Her heart clenched in her chest as she pulled her phone from her pocket, pressing speed dial two.

"Hello?"

"Rhys." She sighed gratefully as she sunk onto the tatty old sofa below the Torchwood sign, taking in the chaos left behind by Jack's manic moment.

"Gwen? You alright love?"

"No." Gwen answered almost immediately, pulling her legs up onto the couch and tucking them under her chin.

**Tuesday 12th August 7.11****pm**

Rhys was flicking through the paper, the first chance he'd got today. Not that he had been particularly busy, it was just he'd been distracted. Gwen had arrived home early again, a lack of appetite and a lack of will to do anything. She had lain against him on the couch, staring blankly at the news on the television before she'd announced she was going out for a walk. Rhys had wanted to go with her, to make sure she was okay, but he'd also appreciated that she needed to be on her own at the moment.

He'd let her go reluctantly and now, an hour later, he was looking for distractions to stop the worry gnawing away at the pit of his stomach. He'd already munched his way though a family size packet of walkers and was now perusing the headlines. Something caught his eye in the centrefold though. It reminded him somewhat of September 11th and the months after when there had been two page spreads in remembrance of all the firemen that had died in the attack. Now though he was staring down at names of children lost, pictures of four and five year olds grinning out at him without a care in the world. Timothy Roberts. Alun Williams. Evan Jones. Cadi Davies. Megan Owen. Finlay Lloyd.

Rhys shut the paper. It didn't help. On the front page there was an announcement that the city would be having a ceremony outside the town hall tomorrow morning and the Mayor would make a plea to whomever had taken the children on the BBC 9 o'clock news. It wouldn't help, and Rhys hated the fact he knew that.

**Tuesday 12th August 11.59pm**

Jack was alone back in the Hub again. He'd come back eventually, after wandering around aimlessly for hours, to find Gwen long gone. He didn't want to stay here though. It was too empty, a distinct lack of life about the place.

Jack was considering going back to Ianto's when the rift alarm sounded. It was almost background noise now; going off so often in a day Jack didn't think he could bare the silence when it came back – if it came back. But as he crossed to the computer he realised this alarm was different. The Rift hadn't taken something, something had come through.

"Ianto." Jack's voice was breathy and hopeful as he pulled his coat from the stand, bringing it the floor, clattering off the metal grating as he dived out the Hub without a second thought. Too late he realised he didn't have the keys for the SUV with him, so he ran. He ran so hard and so long he thought his arms and legs would fall off. He sprinted through puddles that splattered mud on his coat and trousers, but he didn't care. He ran until it felt like his heart was going to explode from inside his chest, felt like he was breathing pure carbon dioxide.

He knocked someone down in Mount Stuart Square, dodging round their friends that were emerging from the Point. The echoes of some band reached his ears, drowning out the sound of rain pelting down on him, flattening his hair to his forehead as his feet slapped loudly on wet tarmac. He skidded past a dumpster that bar staff were emptying bottles into.

"Careful mate!"

The sound of shattering glass failed to distract him as he ran on with the hope in his heart that he had found Ianto, finally stumbling to a halt outside the station. He turned in a wide arch, glancing furiously around for any sign of a suited Welshman, but the street was full of nothing but drunken revellers, searching blindly for keys and phones and numbers for taxis that hadn't shown up. Until there was screaming, a deafening roar of someone in distress. Jack whirled around in search of the source to find a man crouched beside the closed gates to the station entrance. His face was buried in his hands; only thing showing was a cropped head of brown hair.

"Ianto?" Jack tentatively enquired, reaching out to the man. Green eyes glanced up at him, boring into his very soul as Jack's heart sank to the pit of his stomach, leaving a queasy feeling in its wake. He didn't recognise the face, and the face didn't recognise him.

"Come on." Jack encouraged, pulling the pliable man to his feet. "Let's get you somewhere safe."

**Wednesday 13th August 2.14am**

Jack sat with his head in his hands in the television room at Flat Holm. He could hear the distant sounds of crying, screaming and banging reverberating around the stone walls. If it was possible he felt worse now than when Ianto had first disappeared. He wondered bleakly how many times his heart had to break before it shattered.

"Here."

Helen was handing him a warm mug. He was grateful to see it was tea and not coffee.

"You look like you need it. Rough couple of days for you I presume with all those children going missing. I hope you're not expecting them to be housed here when they come back?" Helen asked, sitting down beside Jack on the saggy couch. Jack didn't say anything, just clasped the mug in both hands, trying to get some feeling back in them.

"Ianto not with you tonight?" Helen prompted, somewhat disturbed by Jack's vow of silence.

"He's gone." Jack said, voice void of emotion. Helen frowned, hoping Jack meant he'd moved on from Torchwood, rather than the alternative. But Helen knew Ianto Jones well enough to know that he would never leave Torchwood willingly. She had seen the way he looked at Jack Harkness, and to be honest she couldn't blame him.

"He's been taken by the Rift." Jack added eventually, still staring into the depths of his cup of tea that remained untouched.

"I'm sorry." Helen said eventually. She couldn't think of anything else to say, had worked at Flat Holm too long to know that she couldn't say anything that would make it okay. Ianto would either come back like the residents of Flat Holm or he wouldn't come back at all.

"We'll take care of him when he comes back." Helen added as an after thought, trying to buoy Jack's mood somewhat.

"I know you will. But I'd rather it was me. I rather he didn't come back that way at all." Jack replied almost immediately, but he sounded resigned, as if he knew he was clutching at straws, holding on to the back of false hope.

Wednesday 13th August 6.45am

Jack was in Ianto's Church. He didn't know why or how he had got here, nor how long he'd been sat there. He'd just walked and somehow he'd found himself in the second row staring at the figure of Christ hung from the cross like it was going to be his salvation.

"Jack?" Father Bowen was stood beside the pulpit, a sheaf of papers in his hands that he placed down on the lectern before moving across the wooden floor towards Jack.

"Everything alright?" Bowen asked, leaning on the end of the pews, trying to catch Jack's eye as he gazed blearily into the middle distance.

"I think I've lost my hope." Jack admitted, a defeated sound to his voice as he finally brought red-rimmed eyes into focus, gazing up at the vicar.

Bowen sighed slightly as he sat down beside Jack, leaning back against the hard wood and clasping his hands in front of him.

"Would I be right in guessing that Ianto is now amongst the many unlucky souls that have lost their way?" Bowen asked dejectedly. Jack didn't trust his voice to answer and instead nodded sadly.

"I'm sorry to hear that." Bowen said, and he did sound genuinely cut up about the fact that Ianto was gone from the world. Jack expected him to be full of cutting remarks about how the church didn't approve of 'that sort of thing', but Bowen was reaching out and placing a reassuring hand on Jack's knee, squeezing slightly.

"I know it must be hard to lose someone you love, but you have to hang onto your hope, for his sake as much as yours." Bowen advised. Jack didn't say anything, found it hard to get even breath past the large lump in his throat that was both a mixture of shock over how accepting the church had become nowadays and how hard it was getting to keep the faith.

"You know what the bible says about hope?" Bowen asked, not expecting a reply from Jack, but taking his slight shake of the head as encouragement to go on.

"Hope isn't about wishful thinking; hope is confident expectation. Christians have the hope that Christ will return someday to us, and with that hope we have faith and from that hope springs love." Bowen explained. A bemused look crossed Jack's features as he turned to regard the Vicar with doleful eyes.

"No offence Reverend, but what does that have to go with me finding Ianto again?" Jack asked, rather more bluntly than he intended.

**"Let me put it another way for you Captain. As Christopher Reeve once said, 'Once you choose hope, anything is possible.'"  
**


	9. Chapter 9

**AUTHOR NOTE****S**: I apologise for the delay. No real excuse apart from the fact my brain is unwilling to co-operate with it's writing counterpart at the moment. It just refused to write this chapter. One more chapter and I promise I'll pick up speed again, as like I said most of the rest of the fic is written. Thanks for sticking with this.

* * *

**Wednesday 13th August 10.55am**

"You want to go a séance to call ghosts forth, that we don't think are ghosts?" Gwen asked almost incredulously. Jack had been rummaging in the archives since she'd got into work less than an hour ago.

"Yes." Jack said without looking up from where he was now gathering candles from a drawer in the archives.

"Just wanted to clarify." Gwen said a little sarcastically. She knew Jack was desperate, was getting that way herself. But a séance? He was reaching ridiculous now.

"So where are we doing this séance?" Gwen asked, still watching Jack as he stuffed candles and bits of paper into a rucksack.

"In the park by the castle, where the first child disappeared, where Finn disappeared." Jack spoke quickly as he shouldered the bag, disappearing back through the tunnels towards his office.

"And what are you going to say to these "ghosts" once you've called them forth?" Gwen was being patronizing she knew, but right now she was so weary and desperate that she didn't care.

"We're going to ask them to give the children and Ianto back." Jack answered, now rummaging about in his bottom drawer for God knew what.

"Jack you don't have a religious bone in your body, nor are you gifted in any way. So how the hell is this going to work?" Gwen demanded.

"I'll have you know I'm gifted in many departments." Jack shot back at her, causing Gwen to roll her eyes, and for a moment it was almost like they were a team again, Jack coming up with crazy ideas that just might work while the rest of the team debunked them. But Gwen was the rest of the team now and it wasn't right without Owen's impossible pessimism or Tosh's twisted modifications or Ianto's sarcastic wit. It was just Gwen against Jack and Gwen had reached the point where she was done arguing, which scared her more than she was willing to admit.

She watched him leaving the office now, SUV keys in hand as he grabbed for his greatcoat, heading towards the cog door, beckoning Gwen behind him.

"You realise how ridiculous this is?" Gwen called after him.

"That's why it's going to work." Jack shot back with one of his disarming grins. Gwen huffed out a sigh, uncrossing her arms and following Jack out the car. _What the hell_, she thought. _They had nothing left to lose. _

**Wednesday 13th August 11.42am**

Gwen was setting up candles in a circle on the ground in Bute park. She had no idea what she was doing but Jack had told her to do it, and at a loss of anything else to do she had complied. She had suspicions that Jack was slowly unravelling though, that without Ianto he'd lost the inability to think rationally.

"Jack what are you doing?" Gwen asked, looking up from the candles to see Jack was pressing buttons on his wrist strap.

"Opening a door." Jack answered blankly.

It all suddenly sunk in then. The séance had been a ruse and Gwen felt used, cheap and cheated. She lurched to her feet, grasping blindly for his hands to stop him, but it was too late, people were shimmering into existence beside her.

"Jack what have you done?" Gwen demanded now Jack had stopped fiddling, looking up and around him.

"Called our unwelcome guests into existence." Jack answered solemnly. He didn't feel bad about lying to Gwen, when effectively he hadn't. He'd maybe stretched the truth with the word séance but he had wanted to call forth the "ghosts" he'd just done it by knocking on the rift door rather than the way Gwen had assumed.

"Jack this isn't funny anymore." Gwen said nervously, backing up so she was flush against Jack's side. He was still tapping away at buttons on his wrist strap, obliviously to Gwen's discomfort as Tosh, Owen and even her dead grandmother converged on them. There were other faces that she didn't recognise, people long dead in period clothing. Jack glanced up and caught sight of Greg Bishop, of Alice Guppy, Estelle Cole and even Alex Hopkins.

"I wasn't laughing to start with." Jack deadpanned as he watched others from his past sashaying through the trees towards them. Doctor Tilda Brennan stood shoulder to shoulder with Emily Holyrod, Charles Gaskell not far behind them. It was getting too much for Jack, too many familiar faces that haunted his dreams were now a waking nightmare.

"Who are you?" Jack called out with a confidence he didn't feel as Gwen clutched blindly for his hand.

"We are like you Jack, we are forever." A voice curled out from between Alice Guppy's lips that was not her own, it almost sounded childlike to Jack's ears.

"Why are you taking the children of Cardiff?"

"To play." The words echoed through Bute Park, curling from every translucent lip in eerie childishness.

"Jack they sound like they're just children." Gwen whispered, a terrified tone to her voice.

"Why did you take Ianto then? He's not a child." Jack called out, backing Gwen and him towards a tree without realising it, trying to stay out of the reach of the "ghosts".

They all seemed to stop in their tracks at Jack's words though, their light dimming slightly but not going out.

"We thought he could help us. He's lost like us, lost so many. Now we come to you for help Jack Harkness." All the apparitions seemed to be speaking in chorus now, which was frankly far more disturbing than having individual dead people speaking to you.

"Why should I help you when you've taken something from me?"

There was a flash of blinding light that caused Jack to turn away, squinting slightly as he felt Gwen bury her head in his left shoulder. When the light dimmed, all that was left behind was the single form of a small blue-eyed boy staring up at Jack and Gwen with a lost look in his eyes.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to lose him as well. I just wanted to go home." The boy admitted sadly, and there were tears in his eyes as he gazed up at Gwen and Jack who seemed to have lost their fear somewhat.

"Go home?" Gwen asked, straightening herself slightly, but still refusing to let go of Jack.

"It was prophesised that we'd go through the door into another world when the darkness descended on us. We did, but I let go and now I can't find my way home or the Promised Land." The boy confessed, rubbing at his bloodshot his eyes.

Jack just stood staring at the little boy. He couldn't conceivable believe that this was the one who had taken all those children, the one who'd taken Ianto, who'd caused thousands of families heartache and grief all because he was a little boy lost; let go of someone's hand.

"Jack?" Gwen was looking at him as tears brimmed in his eyes.

"What's your name?" Jack almost barked.

"Name?" The boy looked confused for a moment.

"Yeah, what do your parents call you?" Jack prompted.

The boy shrugged which made Jack slightly wary of him, but he suddenly realised this was his only chance to get those children back. To get Ianto back.

"We can help you find your way home. But you have to give us back what we've lost. You can't just take all those children."

"I didn't take them. They came willingly, they wanted to play."

"You tricked them with images of their dead family. That's not willing, that's hope. They're lost like you now." Jack replied, his voice oddly calm as he knelt down so he was at eyelevel with the small boy. He almost felt like he was talking to Finn.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean for them to get lost too. If I find them you'll take me home?" The boy looked up hopefully at Jack.

"I can't take you home." Jack said apologetically. The boys face fell.

"But we can send you there. Where is home? Do you have co-ordinates?"

The boy shook his head.

"Do you know when you got lost?" Gwen piped up from behind Jack. Jack turned to look at her questioningly.

"If we know when he got lost we can cross reference if with rift spikes and maybe pinpoint when and where that was. Open a door again maybe?" Gwen suggested. Jack nodded before he was turning back to the boy.

"It was just before I found the first one. I was holding onto my Mothers hand and the next thing I knew I was holding on to him."

"Finn." Jack let the boys name pass his lips.

"Do you know where that boy is now?" Jack asked, a hint of desperation creeping into his voice. He watched forlornly as the boy shook his head sadly from side to side.

"Ok." Jack rallied himself somewhat.

"You go and find all those children and Ianto for me and I promise you that me and Gwen will set you on the right way home." Jack urged. He watched, waiting for the boy's reaction, catching those startling blue eyes that reminded him so painfully of Ianto. He saw a flash of something in those blue depths, something so much older.

"They could be anywhere, anytime, anyplace."

Jack felt his stomach sink down into his boots again at those words.

"But I will find them for you Jack Harkness because you found me." The little boy smiled at Jack before there was another flash of bright light, blinding both Jack and Gwen.

When Jack opened his eyes it was pitch black, and certainly no longer Wednesday morning.

"What the?" Jack frowned, pulling himself to his feet and looking around. The candles that Gwen had set burning had burnt themselves out.

"What time is it?" Jack asked.

"My watch has stopped." Gwen complained. Jack glanced down at his own watch, but like Gwen's it had frozen at 11.42am. Jack saw a drunken group of girls stumbling along the path at the edge of the park and called out to them.

"Excuse me ladies!" Jack called, jogging over towards them.

"Wouldn't happen to have the time on you would you?" Jack asked politely, flashing them one of his patented Harkness grins.

"'Bout 2." The one nearest to him slurred, her friend almost dropping most of her chips as she fumbled about in her handbag for her phone.

"Seventeen minutes past two." The girl proclaimed with some triumph before plopping the phone back in her bag.

"Bloody 'ell. Me Mam's gonna kill me." A third girl piped up, dragging her friends further into the park, tottering on high heels through mud to get to their destination.

"Have we just lost a day Jack?" Gwen asked from behind Jack.

"Looks like." Jack commented a frown on his features as he contemplated whom the little boy had been. Jack was inclined to believe he was telling the truth, he had seemed genuine enough. The sour fact was though that Jack didn't have any other choice but to believe him since he had no other way of getting the children or Ianto back.

"Shit. Ten missed calls from Rhys." Gwen grumbled beside him.

"Come on, lets work out how we're going to get that little boy home and hope he manages to find ours and bring him home." Jack encouraged, a hand on Gwen's elbow, steering her towards the SUV as she called Rhys back.

**Thursday 14th August 2.19am**

Rhys was going spare. He hadn't heard from Gwen all day and every time he'd called her, her phone had been switched off. He'd been down to the tourist office in the Plass and hammered on the door for a good ten minutes but to no avail. He'd even tried jumping up and down on that paving stone of theirs a couple of times, grateful that no one could see him. He was now down at the police station waiting for PC Andy Davidson to come to the front desk, hoping he had heard something.

That was when Rhys' phone started ringing. He had it out in a flash, noticing Gwen's name before he was yelling.

"Where the bloody hell have you been? I've been worried sick thinking you'd gone as well Gwen." Rhys ranted, moving away form the front desk slightly as he noticed Andy approaching.

"No I will not bloody calm down Gwen! Where've you been? I've been all round Cardiff looking for you, not a sign of you anywhere, no one's seen you. I'm at the police station about to report you as missing." Rhys said slightly hysterically, not missing Andy Davidson rolling his eyes at him out of the corner of his field of vision.

"What do you mean you don't know where you've been?" Rhys asked, confused, his voice calming slightly. Rhys was silent as she listened to Gwen giving him a half arsed explanation.

"Are you coming home now then?" Rhys asked, trying to sound authoritive.

"Right I'm coming over to you then." Rhys replied hanging up and heading back out the front door of the police station before Gwen even had a chance to draw breath.

"Oi!" Andy called after him, but not making a move to follow.

"I could have you done for wasting police time!" Andy called after him, but Rhys was already well out of earshot. Andy sighed, rolling his eyes before he was trudging back up the stairs to get himself a coffee before he went back out of the streets.


	10. Chapter 10

**AUTHOR NOTES**: Another chapter and we're not far from the 15th now. Thank God came the cry. I think I've forgotten how to write Ianto it's been so long since we've seen him... but I promise all (well not all - but a fair amount) shall be revealed in the next chapter. For now enjoy this one with extra helpings of Rhys. :)

* * *

**Thursday 14th August 3.07am**

"Rhys, it's not that I don't want you to stay love, it's just that me and Jack have got a lot to do and-" Gwen trailed off. She didn't want to leave Rhys with the impression that he was useless, but she couldn't think of anything for him to do that would be a help rather than a hindrance. She glanced behind him at Ianto's precious coffee machine. No, Ianto would never forgive her when he came back to find out she'd let Rhys – the person who'd exploded the microwave only last week after leaving a spoon in the bowl of soup he was reheating for his lunch – tamper with the coffee machine.

"Well it's not as if I've got anywhere else to be is it. No point in me going into work when the city's ground to a halt now is there?" Rhys asked.

The police had stopped all traffic in and out of Cardiff now, setting up roadblocks on the Cardiff M4 off-ramps, trying to contain whoever had been stealing children. Too bad roadblocks didn't contain the Rift.

"Let me at least stay love." Rhys coaxed, a hand reaching out to grab onto Gwen's pulling her closer to him as his other hand slide round her waist. She could feel his wedding ring cool against her sweaty palms and she nodded. She needed his support now, she needed Rhys Williams' ranting just because he could and she needed him to just hold her.

She lent forward so her head was resting on his forehead, kissing him gently as she felt his arms coming round her, holding her close. Her head slipped sideways onto his shoulder, inhaling the smell of diesel on his coat that never seemed to go away when he worked for Harwoods, no matter how many bloody times she washed the coat. She could smell him as well. She couldn't describe the smell of Rhys, Ianto had asked her about it once when they'd been discussing how intoxicating Jack smelt and Ianto had made a lewd comment about him smelling so much better after sex. Gwen had found she couldn't put into words how Rhys smelt.

_"He just smells like home."_

Ianto had let a knowing shy smile cross his lips at that which is when Jack had interrupted them with his own lewd comment about how Ianto smelt after sex. Ianto to her smelt like coffee and the refreshing smell of new books, unless of course he'd spent the night with Jack then it seemed no matter how many showers he took throughout the course of the day he still smelt like Jack.

Gwen found herself breathing in the scent of Rhys deeply, again trying to define what he smelt of so she could finally tell Ianto when he got back. But again words failed her, Rhys just smelt like home.

**Thursday 14th August 6.14am**

Gwen was still shifting through rift readings from the last few days, trying to find patterns and comparing them with the one from when Finn had disappeared. The problem was just before Finn disappeared there had been a negative spike, which indicate that someone or something had been taken before Finn. There were no missing children reported as disappearing from Bute Park before Finn, which left Gwen to wonder if the machines had accurately recorded it. She'd checked, double checked and triple checked using Tosh's programs but nothing seemed to be out of place. She frowned, biting down on her thumbnail in confusion.

"Problem?" Jack asked from where he was busy sifting through Tosh and Ianto's reports from when John Hart had come through the rift, trying to determine how he'd been capable of bending the Rift to his will with his vortex manipulator. Problem was Hart's hadn't been tampered with like Jack's.

"Yeah. No. I don't know." Gwen answered, continuing to frown as she looked at the screen.

"Thanks for clearing that up." Jack replied curtly, getting up from Gwen's desk and crossing to Tosh's old workstation, peering over her shoulder to see what was troubling her.

"We've determined that negative rift spikes, however minute, are indicators of the Rift taking something right?" Gwen asked slowly, as if trying to set things straight in her own mind.

"Right." Jack agreed, folding his arms as he stood behind her chair, looking down at her rather than the screen now.

"And positive spikes indicate something coming through the rift."

"I'm with you on Rift 101 so far." Jack teased, sounding slightly more condescending than he meant to, but he was tried and losing patience with reading over old case notes.

"Well then surely if the boy had appeared through the rift before taking Finn we would get a positive spike followed by a negative one, yes?" Gwen asked, turning her head to look at Jack.

"I would assume so yes."

"Then why have I got readings for one massive negative spike, no sign of a positive one anywhere?" Gwen asked, flicking through a couple of screens until she came to the readings she was looking for.

Jack frowned. "Is it like that every time a child disappeared?" Jack asked, bending forward now so he could get a closer look.

"No, that's the really odd thing. The first time there's one negative spike but every other time there's a positive followed by a negative." Gwen explained, shifting through another couple of readings to prove her point.

"But that would mean that the boy didn't come through the rift, he was taken through the rift at that exact time as Finn was, but Finn was the only kid in the area that went missing." Jack voiced, seemingly trying to work things out by talking them through.

"Any other readings from that time? Could the boy have been in the park for a long time before Finn? Just waiting?"

"There's no rift activity in that area since the week before and we know what that was. That bloody Hoix that we ended up chasing through Cardiff Castle, chucking you off the battlements and causing Ianto to –" She stopped mid-sentence at the mention of Ianto's name like it hurt to recall something so stupid and recent.

"Anyway, that boy said that one minute he was in the rift and the next he was holding Finn's hand." Gwen tried to reason.

"Made us a cuppa." Rhys interrupted, the silver tea tray shaking as he tried to balance it in one hand, lifting Gwen's cup from it and giving it to her first. The second one he gave to Jack, which he took hesitantly. It was matt black - Ianto's mug. He wanted to say something, wanted to scream and shout and tell Rhys that this wasn't his mug, but Jack had cracked his only a few days ago and Rhys wasn't to know it was Ianto's. Jack caught Gwen staring at him, a look of concern on her features as Jack stared intently at the mug in his hands.

"Thanks Rhys." Jack said gruffly, as if to show to Gwen he wasn't affected by it, but he knew he wasn't fooling anyone, least of all himself.

**Thursday 14th August 9.25am**

"Hello? Yes, could you transfer me to Ward 22."

Jack waited, listening to the various beeps as he was transferred to what he was sure was every department in the hospital.

"Hello, Ward 22."

"Oh Hello, I just wanted to check on a patient. A Ria Lloyd."

"Can I ask who you are Sir?"

Jack fumbled for words. He was sure he couldn't lie through his teeth now and tell them he was Ria's husband, not when Chris had been in with a very strong Welsh accent.

"My name's Jack Harkness, she's my sister in law." Jack was surprised at himself. He could have flashed his Torchwood card and got all manner of information, but no, here he was playing the family card.

"I'm afraid I can't give you confidential information over the phone, but I believe that the Doctor is hoping to have her released later today. Would you like me to have her give you a call if that's the case?"

Jack could hear the nurse smiling down the phone at him.

"Please, if you wouldn't mind."

"Does she have your number?"

"I think so." Jack recited his number down the phone for the nurse just in case, giving her his mobile on the off chance he was away from the Hub. He hung up, turning back to the case reports in front of him. One good piece of news for the day, he hoped this was a turning point.

**Thursday 14th August 3.55pm**

"I can't wait any longer." Jack's voice was booming in the silence of the Hub as he got up from the sofa and crossed to his office doorway.

"What do you mean you can't wait?" Gwen asked, sounding angry as she too got to her feet, abandoning her computer that she'd been staring blankly at the for the last half hour.

"I can't wait about for something to happen, for someone to present me with those children and Ianto. I can't just sit around not doing anything." Jack sounded more confused and desperate than angry now as he disappeared into his office. Gwen made to follow him but Rhys held out a hand to her.

"Let me talk to him." Rhys reasoned. Gwen almost scoffed at the idea but she realised she was having no luck getting through to Jack so she didn't see the harm in letting Rhys try. She watched nervously as Rhys disappeared through Jack's office door, fidgeting with the hem of her jumper before she decided that she could no longer be idle either and crossed to the kettle to make herself a cup of tea.

"Jack." Rhys spoke softly and as calmly as he could muster at that moment in time, he was fed up of Jack Harkness' antics and unpredictability and the detrimental effect it was having on the remainder of his team, more specifically Gwen.

Jack didn't answer, was busy attaching his gun to his belt, not looking up when Rhys stepped forward. Rhys decided to just go for it.

"Jack, you're their leader for Christ's sake. You go to hell in a hand-basket what chance do the rest of them have? There's only so long Gwen can be the voice of reason for you before you've got to bloody realise that you're the one in charge and as much fun as it is to go in guns blazing, you have to play the waiting game sometimes." Rhys voiced, his confidence growing with every word as Jack looked up at him, almost stunned.

"I'm done waiting Rhys. I don't know if you've noticed but I'm not the most patient man." Jack ground out between gritted teeth, leaning heavily on his desk as he squared his shoulders towards Rhys.

"It hadn't escaped my notice." Rhys replied sarcastically. "I'm guessing your Ianto's the one who usually makes you take a step back then, play's the umpire between you and Gwen?" Rhys asked.

Jack nodded, not missing the use of the word your in front of Ianto's name. He was impressed with Rhys' powers of perception and also a little perturbed at how he seemed to automatically agree with him, like Ianto was his possession or his pet. Ianto was his own man, and Jack knew that, didn't he?

"What you gonna do if you find him then? How you gonna get back? What about Gwen and Cardiff? You'd just leave her behind for Ianto?" Rhys questioned quickly, his gaze never wavering from Jack's. Right at that moment Jack hated Rhys bloody Williams. He was the voice of reason in all this and Jack sorely wanted to punch him because of it. He didn't though, instead his gaze faltered and he looked away from the angry Welshman, down to the piles of papers on his desk.

"I didn't think so." Rhys whispered in triumphant reply before he was turning and disappearing out Jack's office.

Jack let out a shuddering breath as he felt his knees wobble beneath him. He sunk into his desk chair, turning slightly so he could see his computer screen. Numbers and figures glared down at him like a one-way ticket to nowhere, an improbability of getting back that the Doctor couldn't even calculate. He'd be lying if he hadn't toyed with the idea of calling the Doctor but Jack knew that if this had been a life-changing event the Doctor would have turned up of his own accord.

But it was a life-changing event for Jack at least. It was another member of his team taken by the unpredictability of the rift. It was another lover he would never get to hold just one last time. It was another life lost. He wanted someone to come in and take charge, he wanted that reassurance that somebody else was going to end up taking the rap and it wouldn't fall all on Jack's shoulders. The thing was Jack had learned a long time ago that this was _his_ Torchwood and _his_ team, and therefore they were _his_responsibility.

**Thursday 14th August 4.52pm**

"Jack?"

Gwen was stood just inside Jack's office, looking nervous. He didn't look up or seem to acknowledge her presence so she ploughed on anyway.

"Me and Rhys are gonna head home." Gwen waited for a reply again, but Jack still didn't acknowledge her presence.

"Rhys is going to cook dinner if you want to join us, I know you haven't eaten today." Gwen tried again, she still got no reply though.

"Jack." Gwen was stood beside him now, a hand reaching out for him. He caught her wrist just before it touched his shoulder, placing it back down at her side.

"Go home Gwen." Jack said resignedly.

"But,"

"Just go." Jack said, the tone of his voice leaving no room for argument as he continued to stare resolutely at his knees. Gwen hesitated. She didn't want Jack to spend the night on his own, brooding in the dark of his office, nor did she want him to do something rash and stupid like opening the rift. She wished Ianto was about so she could at least go home, sound in the mind that Jack was being looked after, but Ianto was the reason Jack needed looking after.

"Call me if –" Gwen left her sentence hanging like she had done previously. She didn't want to finish it, didn't want to say all the various endings to that sentence, the only one that she actually wanted to say she couldn't for fear of it not being true.

_"Call me when Ianto comes back."_

Gwen turned from Jack and his office, her hand slipping into Rhys' as they moved out the cog door and up through Ianto's domain. Gwen paused in the tourist office when she caught sight of Ianto's winter coat still hung on the back of his chair. She picked it up and pulled it to her face, inhaling the smell of Ianto on the coat. Rhys watched her from the tourist office doorway.

"It's cold out." Rhys stated after a long moment where he thought Gwen was crying into the coat.

"I'm sure Ianto wouldn't mind if you borrowed his coat."

**Gwen gave him a teary smile as she brought the coat away from her face. She considered how stupidly sentimental she was being but she pulled the coat on anyway, the sleeves falling down past her hands and engulfing her in the smell of Ianto. It comforted her somewhat as she reached out a hand for Rhys, following him out the tourist office and home.  
**


	11. Chapter 11

**AUTHOR NOTES**: The 15th is upon us at last. This is a long chapter because I wanted to get all Jack's research out the way before Ianto came back. Also poor Ria's been neglected in the hospital for quite some time now. I don't think the ending will put any of you at ease and for this I apologise, but also promise that the next chapter will be up by Monday!

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**Thursday 14th August 5.00pm**

Jack had watched Gwen and Rhys leave on the CCTV. He'd seen Gwen pluck Ianto's coat from the back of his chair, inhaling deeply the smell of Ianto that no doubt still clung to it. When her and Rhys emerged from the tourist office Ianto's coat was adorning Gwen's frame like a protective shield against the outside world as Rhys led her away to his car.

Now Jack was looking at old CCTV footage from nearly a year previously, someone similarly inhaling the scent of Jack's military coat. Jack watched as tears soaked into the collar of his coat, the young Welshman shaking with barely concealed sobs. He observed Ianto as he sunk to the ground of Jack's office, wrapping himself up in the folds of the coat, hugging himself. Jack's heart broke a little as he fast forwarded through several hours of footage in which Ianto barely moved before Toshiko was there, sitting down beside him, apparently without a word, just reaching out to him and pulling him into a gentle hug.

He paused it just as Ianto looked up, glancing towards the camera, his cheeks tear stained and his eyes still sparkling with more unshed tears. His phone was ringing again, demanding his attention and pulling him out of his reflective brooding.

"Hello?" His voice sounded hollow even to his own ears.

"Jack, it's Ria."

"Ria." Jack straightened slightly in his chair. "Have they discharged you? Do you want me to come pick you up?" Jack asked, hoping that she would say yes so it would at least give him something to do.

"I've been discharged but-" Ria hesitated.

"I know you're trying to find Ianto and Finn and all those other children at the moment Jack, but-" Ria paused again, finding it hard to put into words what she wanted to say.

"I'm being selfish I know, but can we talk?" Ria sounded like she regretted asking it.

"'Course. Where are you? I'll pick you up." Jack said without hesitation, already getting to his feet and making a grab for his coat.

"Still at the hospital. I didn't want to go back to Ianto's, I just don't want to be alone right now." Ria admitted. "Also I could do with a hug." Ria sniffed and Jack had to smile at that as he fished the SUV keys off of the end of his desk.

"Well you called the right person then. I'll get you at the main entrance in ten minutes."

**Thursday 14th August 6.24pm**

"Here."

Jack slid a mug of tea across the café table to Ria before sitting down opposite her and wrapping his hands round his own mug.

"Thanks." Ria replied, staring into the depths of her mug. Jack watched her; she looked awful. She had cabin trunks under her eyes, her face gaunt and hollow looking, her eyes lost the life that used to be ever present.

"Chris not want to come and pick you up?" Jack asked conversationally.

"He said he would but I told him I'd be fine. I needed to talk to someone who understands, who won't ask me how I'm feeling or how I'm doing because they already know."

Jack felt emotion twisting in the depths of his stomach, realising Ria was talking about him. And he did know how she felt. He desperately wished he didn't though.

"They're not coming back are they Jack?" Ria asked, trying to keep the emotion out her voice as she looked up at him, her gaze piercing through his bravado.

"I wish I could say they were but," Jack took a deep breath. "I've exhausted every avenue and now my hopes are riding on someone I don't even know I can trust."

Ria brought a hand to her face, leaning her chin against it and turning to look out the rain spattered window.

"I hate you sometimes." Ria whispered, not turning to look at him. Jack's stomach lurched. He hadn't been expecting so blunt and callous words from Ria.

"I hate Torchwood and what it's done to my family. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if Ianto had never gone to London, had never joined Torchwood there. Mam would still be dead though, Finn would probably still be gone, Chris and I would probably still be divorced and Ianto," She sighed, finally turned to look at Jack. "He'd probably still be in the same mess, still just as damaged, just without you to help him through it."

Jack worried his lip, picking up his mug and holding it to his chest defensively.

"If I could change what happened in London I would, but it was out with my control, If I could undo all the horrible things that have happened I would certainly try, but it wouldn't make Ianto the man he is today, and I love that man just the way he is." Jack replied eventually. He could see tears in Ria's eyes as she put her mug down, reaching out for Jack's hand that was still resting on the café table and squeezing.

"That's why I only hate you sometimes." Ria gave a tense smile, which Jack returned.

**Friday 15th August 7.58am**

"Jack?" Gwen called hesitantly as she stepped into the Hub, Rhys trailing behind her stifling a yawn. She'd dragged him out of bed an hour ago, no longer able to feign sleep and asked him to come with her. He hadn't needed much prompting after the initial shock of what time in the morning it was.

"Gwen?" Jack called back, emerging from his office with a pen in one hand, a couple of sheets of paper in the other.

"What time is it?" Jack frowned, looking down at his watch. It didn't help. It was still frozen at 11.42am from the previous day's time jumping.

"About eight." Gwen answered, letting go of Rhys' hand and crossing the Hub towards Jack's office as he disappeared back inside. Jack didn't realise the whole night had gotten away from him, he'd been so engrossed in his work after he'd left Ria that he'd barely taken the time to go to toilet.

"What are you doing?" Gwen asked as she took in the sight of Jack's office. Every available surface was covered in printouts of rift readings and reports, post-it notes attached to some of them with scribbled words.

"Trying to get that boy home, that's if he comes good on his half of the deal." Jack said, frowning slightly. He'd been trying desperately to push that doubt to the back of his mind but it kept resurfacing, taunting Jack.

"He's coming back Jack. They're all coming back." Gwen voiced with that same insufferable hope that had been present all week.

"But what if they don't, what if-"

Jack was cut off by Gwen slapping him, hard.

"Stop it." Gwen barked shrilly, finger pointing at him now as he brought a hand up to his stinging cheek, shocked at Gwen's behaviour.

"Just stop it Jack. I'm fed up of having this argument. By all means have your doubts, I do, but I'd prefer if you kept them to yourself right now." Gwen shot back at him. Jack blinked in surprise for a moment before he turned back to his piles of paper like he was a schoolboy chastised for his bad behaviour.

"I've managed to collate readings from when John Hart came through the rift, how he managed to manipulate it in order to travel from point to point. If I could use my wrist strap I could create a rift storm in order to get the boy back to where he came from." Jack turned to Gwen, a hardness in her eyes at the mention of John Hart's name.

"As long as you don't call that bastard for help." Gwen ground out through gritted teeth. For all he had tried to rectify things she still couldn't shake the hate she had for him for allowing Grey through in the first place and for blowing up half her city, including her friends. Gwen didn't want to think about that now though.

"No need. Just a few minor reconfigurations and I should be able to create a rift storm, only problem is I don't know where I'm going." Jack bounded over a couple of mounds of paperwork to pick up a pile that was perching precariously on the edge of his desk.

"I've been looking over the readings of when the boy came through and the implications of a large negative rift spike. I've cross-referenced them with other disappearances in the rift but nothing matches." Jack frowned as he handed Gwen the papers. She flicked through them, frowning as she tried to think of any reason to explain the negative Rift spike.

"Does this Rift of yours just take people to other worlds or can it take them through time as well?" Rhys asked from the doorway of Jack's office. Gwen and Jack hadn't noticed his presence, swinging round to regard him. Gwen's face broke into a smile.

"Rhys you're a genius." Gwen grinned, bounding over to him and kissing him firmly on the lips, before turning back to Jack

"All of the people at Flat Holm were taken through the Rift to other worlds yes?" Gwen asked, looking up at Jack for confirmation. He nodded.

"What if that boy didn't come from another world. He looks human right? What if he came from our world, from that exact spot in Bute Park but in the future?" Gwen suggested, face beaming now.

"That would explain why we got a huge negative Rift spike because he was taken at the exact same time as Finn from the exact same place, two positives making a negative?"

Gwen watched as a smile broke out on Jack's face too, the first one she had genuinely seen all week.

"Rhys Williams I could kiss you." Jack grinned at him. Rhys looked terrified as he straightened himself slightly, suddenly feeling awkward.

"Save it for Ianto!" Gwen smirked, putting the files she was holding back down on Jack's desk. They shared a look that dared either of them to question the fact Ianto was coming back.

"So that's us sorted then? All we have to do is wait?" Rhys asked. This seemed to deflate Gwen and Jack somewhat.

"You finish reconfiguring your wrist strap. I'll patch the rift alert through to the PDA then I think-" Gwen didn't finish her sentence before Jack's phone was ringing. He crossed to it, picking it up. He hoped to god it wasn't another missing child. There had thankfully been no more disappearances since Gwen and Jack's encounter with the small boy the other day. It had been nearly 48 hours now though and still no sign of Ianto or the missing children.

"Weevil sighting off of Greyfriars Road." Jack announced, pulling his jacket from the stand and leaping back over mounds of paper towards the exit. Gwen frowned, almost seeming confused for a moment that in the middle of a crisis something so mundane as a loose Weevil could happen.

"You get called in to deal with beetles? What the hell harm could beetles do?" Rhys asked as he followed Gwen and Jack towards the invisible lift. Gwen giggled before she was laughing heartily, setting Jack off as they clung to each other.

"Beetles would definitely be easier." Jack confessed, watching the frown on Rhys' face as they had a laugh at his expense.

**Friday 15th August 10.59am**

The PDA in Gwen's hands beeped a couple of times as she frowned down at it, changing the screen to see what it was alerting her to now.

"Jack." Gwen stated, eyes blinking slightly in disbelief as she stared at the PDA before her. There was no reply from Jack who was still talking to a distraught looking woman who had just seen her boyfriend mauled. Gwen's eyes refused to move from the screen in front of her.

"Jack!" Gwen called again, sounding close to hysterical, afraid that she was hallucinating due to lack of sleep.

"What?" Jack called over his shoulder, turning towards her slightly, hands stuffed into his pockets as he crossed the street towards her at a leisurely pace, leaving Rhys to try and placate the still crying woman.

"Look." Gwen said, pointing wildly at the screen as a gap-toothed grin broke on her washed out features.

Jack regarded the screen for a moment, noting the rift readings. But that wasn't what was filling Gwen with joy. There was a signal for Ianto's mobile again that had been absent for nearly a week now.

"Lets go." Jack ordered, pulling his mobile out his pocket and pressing speed-dial two before he was grabbing Gwen by the hand and pulling her past the confused looking woman to the SUV.

"Hey!" Rhys called after them as Jack and Gwen legged it down the street towards the blacked out Range Rover. He apologised curtly to the woman before he was following them as fast as his legs would carry him.

"What's going on?" Rhys called slightly breathlessly as he neared them.

"Come on Ianto, pick up." Jack said to himself, loud enough for Gwen and Rhys to hear as he got into the driver's seat of the SUV. It went to Ianto's voicemail.

"Hello this is Ianto Jones' phone, I'm not here right now, but if you leave a message I'll get back to you as soon as possible."

Jack took a moment to savour those words and every Welsh vowel in them. All he'd had for the last week was an automated voice telling him the number was temporarily out of service. He never thought he'd be so grateful to hear Ianto's voicemail message in his life.

"Is he back then?" Rhys asked, confused as he stood by the open passenger door.

"Just shut up Rhys and get in." Gwen told him, slamming her own door.

"Keep trying." Jack told Gwen, tossing her his phone before he was putting the SUV into neutral and starting her up. Tyres screeched as he swung out in front of a taxi who's horn blared, causing Rhys to swear from the back seat while Gwen redialled Ianto's number, bringing up the SatNav.

"Signal's coming from Barry Island. There was a massive Rift spike out there the same time Ianto's phone came back online." Gwen explained as Jack sped off in the direction of Barry.

"Whoa!" Gwen exclaimed, as she hung up on Ianto's voicemail, finger already on the redial button. Jack felt something rock the SUV slightly.

"What the bloody hell was that?" Rhys asked from the back seat, looking around to see what had hit them, glancing briefly at Gwen and her slack jaw, wide-eyed look.

"Did we just have an earthquake in Wales?"

"Another huge Rift spike in the same place. Big ripple effect felt all across the city I presume." Gwen explained, her ear pressed to Jack's phone again.

"And Ianto's phone's not available again." Gwen admitted sheepishly.

"No." Jack said in reply. No explanation to his one word statement as he floored the accelerator. Gwen didn't need an explanation though – she knew what he meant. No, Ianto had not gone back through the rift. No, they had not lost him again. And No way in hell was he not alive.

**Friday 15th August 11.00am**

Ianto stumbled forward into the unknown, as there was a flash that blinded him momentarily. He panicked as he flailed around blindly, searching for something solid to hold onto until he got his bearings, the sensation of falling making him nauseous.

"Uncy Yan?"

Ianto held his breath for a moment, scared that he was hallucinating, or was he now back in his world where he was supposed to be? Had he finally found his nephew again?

"Uncy Yan?"

The voice came again as Ianto blinked in the now dim light, suddenly feeling cold concrete against his cheek. He could feel his mobile vibrating against his leg where it lay in his pocket, but he disregarded it.

"Finn?" His voice sounded parched to his own ears as his nephew swum before his vision. He could still see the Rift shimmering behind Finn like a halo as he painfully pulled himself to his feet. He felt the little boy round his torso instantly, hugging the life out of him as tears ran down his face.

"Hey, it's ok." Ianto soothed, actually smiling now, so happy he had found his nephew after everything.

"It's gonna be okay now."

There was another flash of light that shook the foundations of the building they were in before children started appearing all around Ianto, confused and crying and scared, calling out for loved ones that were not there. It almost overwhelmed him, the sheer volume of children popping back into existence again.

"Come on." Ianto encouraged, pulling himself to his feet and picking Finn up in his arms, trying to herd the other children with one arm in the direction he hoped was the exit.

"We need to get out of here." Ianto called as the building seemed to lurch sideways. He felt the Rift swelling behind him, getting ready to explode as he shuffled terrified children through the doorway into the next room. He turned sharply as he heard a scream behind him. He turned back to see one last child standing in the middle of the room, wide blue eyes blinking back tears as the Rift crackled and fizzed, threatening to spill the whole of time and space into the warehouse they were now in. Ianto desperately hoped that Jack and Gwen were close by to fix this.

He made a split second decision, putting Finn down, pushing him slightly in the direction of the other children before going back for the last child.

"Uncy Yan!" Finn called, desperately, reaching out for him as the floor above them fell through. Ianto halted as timber fell before his eyes, calling out to the blue-eyed child. Ianto watched in horror though as the timber fell through the child that turned to look at him with terrifyingly familiar eyes, smiling now before there was another rumble from the building, the Rift bursting out on itself and throwing Ianto backwards into the only remaining wall standing. He felt himself crashing to the floor with the rest of the building, his cheek pressed against cold concrete as the smiling blue-eyed boy reached out a hand for him.


	12. Chapter 12

**AUTHOR NOTES**: Nothing to say about this chapter really apart from the fact it may quell some of your fears about Ianto. Thanks those of you that are still reading and reviewing!! Encouragement means a lot! :)

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**Friday 15th August 12.01pm**

"Uncle Jack?"

Jack's brain isn't firing on all cylinders, which is odd, because he's usually so good in a crisis. Now though he can barely do what he's told and he feels like he's more of a hindrance than help as he shuffles left to let the fire brigade through then right to let the paramedics through. He doesn't even realise he's still got Finn in his arms until one of the paramedics is asking to take a look at him. Jack is reluctant to relinquish his hold on the small boy though; part of him scared that he'll lose Finn again if he puts him down, or worse – he'll lose the composure he's valiantly holding on to.

"… found the other children… rift's closed…"

Snippets of sentences filter through every once in a while, making sense in his addled mind. Seems like it's only the important one's that make it through but Jack doesn't really care at the moment. He can't say anything; it's a physical impossibility at the moment. Gwen and Rhys enter his vision a couple of times, both of them looking concerned, and Jack can see, like him, Gwen is fighting to hold onto her composure. He almost cries out in pain himself though when they finally lift the girder free. Ianto's cries are vocal enough though.

"…will follow in the car…"

It's been a while since Jack's been in the back of an ambulance. Finn takes everything in, cataloguing all the bits and pieces and sounds of the engine, radio, machines and the traffic outside in his childlike imagination and files them away for later. Jack can only hear the blip of the heart monitor and Ianto's painful wheezing.

He becomes fascinated with Ianto's left hand, the finger's ballooning up and changing a deep shade of purple that would be flattering on Ianto in the form of a shirt. He's watching Ianto's index finger twitching every so often, and he feels like it's a reminder, a sign from Ianto saying _'I'm still here. I'm still fighting.'_

It doesn't help that halfway to the hospital Ianto's heart monitor flat lines and Jack swears his own heart stops as well.

He's stood in the middle of Cardiff Royal A&E, no longer side stepping to let people through. He's stood in the way of everyone when he seems to re-establish himself in the world again instead of drifting through it aimlessly. Sound suddenly comes crashing down around him, the smell of blood threatening to overwhelm him that's been lingering in his nasal cavity for the last hour or so. He feels sick; physically sick. He suddenly realises his arms ache as well since he hasn't let go of Finn in all that time and the small boy doesn't seem to want to relinquish his hold on Jack either. Small fists are clutching onto the lapels of his greatcoat as tears continue to slide gracelessly down Finn's cheeks.

"Mummy!" Finn suddenly yells before squirming in Jack's arms. But Ria is already running down the corridor to meet them, tears of happiness streaming down her face as she pulls Finn from Jack's arms, clutching him close to her chest.

"Finlay." She cries in relief, planting kisses all over him, smelling his hair and brushing dust from his clothes.

"Where've you been munchkin, you're filthy?" Ria asks rhetorically, a slight hysterical laugh in her voice as she pulls Finn back to her chest, the worry back in her eyes as she looks up at Jack still stood in the middle of the corridor, looking slightly dazed.

"What about Ianto?" Ria asked tentatively, as if she was scared of the answer. Jack just nodded at first, licking his dry lips as he watched Finn snuggling into the side of his mother.

"He's back too." Jack said slowly as if he needed to think about each word carefully before he said them.

"Uncy Yan got a big owie when the building fell down and now he won't wake up." Finn hiccoughed into his mother's shoulder, peering out at Jack as if hoping he would correct him again and just tell him Uncy Yan was sleeping.

"Is he-" Ria swallowed nervously, looking like she couldn't take much more. "Will he be okay?"

"They don't know. I need to go and," Jack gestured back down the corridor nervously.

"Stay with Finn, get him checked out, I'll come get you the minute we know anything." Jack said softly, stepping towards Ria and wrapping his arms round her involuntarily before he was pressing a kiss to her hair.

Rhys watched Ianto's sister and Jack interacting from the other end of the corridor, his hands stuffed into his jeans pockets. It had never really crossed his mind that other members of the Torchwood team had family who cared about them, who feared for their lives every minute of the day from when they stepped out the front door in the morning until when they returned in the early hours of the next morning, bedraggled and exhausted. It suddenly made him feel not so alone in the world and for a brief daft moment he thought of setting up a support group for Torchwood employees family's and spouses - but Rhys was sleep deprived and if he was honest with himself, badly shaken by the whole weeks events. He turned as he felt Gwen's presence at his right shoulder.

"Any news love?" Rhys asked hopefully but he could already see by the look in her eyes that she'd been unable to determine the state of Ianto.

"They're looking after him. They won't tell me anything else. Not even when I told them I was Torchwood." Gwen shrugged. "Might send Jack, he might get more out of them."

"Never heard of the expression 'no news is good news'?" Rhys asked, putting his arm round Gwen's shoulder and pulling her close.

**Friday 15th August 5.02pm**

"What did they say?" Gwen asked, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other as Jack traipsed wearily towards her. Jack shrugged. Half of the things that had been said about Ianto's condition had gone way over his head, and the other half were barely permeating the surface.

"Broken ribs, punctured lung, broken arm, cuts, bruises." Jack explained, shoving his hands in his trouser pockets. "They're worried about his brain though. He's fractured his skull and he's been bleeding into his brain."

"Will he be okay though?" Gwen asked, eyes full of tears as she looked up at Jack. Jack desperately wanted to tell her Ianto would be fine, that he'd wake up and they'd take him home and everything would be fine. He couldn't lie to her though.

"They won't know until he wakes up. If he wakes up." Jack said forlornly, swallowing down the sobs that rose painfully in his chest.

"What about the kids? Are all the parents here now?" Jack asked, trying to change the subject. "Did you get Andy to sort out the cover story?"

"Me and Rhys sorted it Jack, everyone's been reunited." Gwen placated, a hand reaching out to rest on his forearm.

"We'll still need to check the children to see if-"

"Jack." Gwen stopped him mid-sentence, motioning over his shoulder to an elderly man who was currently stood outside the door of ICU, looking in through the window at Ianto.

Jack moved away down the corridor to the man stood there. Jack was shocked to see him, had never seen him outside of his house, let alone showing care and concern for his offspring. But here he was, Jack had no idea how he knew, but presumed Ria had called him, and Jack detected emotion in those eyes for once that wasn't anger or even indifference.

"Mr. Jones?" Jack prompted when he drew level with Dylan. Dylan's eyes didn't move from the still form of Ianto through the window, a nurse sat beside his bed, monitoring him at all times.

"I'm not very," Dylan started then sighed. "Rona was always the one that comforted the kids, looked after them when they got ill."

Jack understood. Dylan Jones didn't know how to show his weakness, when his wife had died a part of him had died with her, the part that knew how to care and love. It wasn't that he didn't love his children any less than he had done before; he'd just lost the one person that had taught him how to. They were still children in his eyes, barely old enough to tie their own shoelaces let alone live their own lives and Dylan had lost the ability to connect with them on an adult level.

"Go and sit with him. Tell him that you're there." Jack encouraged, his own eyes turning towards the still form of Ianto in the hospital bed. It almost broke his heart to see Ianto lain beneath the pristine white sheets and it was at that moment that it suddenly all hit home, all of the words the doctor's had said to him, because he could suddenly see Ianto. He could see how human he was. The left hand side of his face was swollen, black and blue from where he had collided with the floor. Jack couldn't see his wavy brown locks, they were hidden from sight in swathes of white gauze and Jack had never thought to ask if they had shaved his whole head. He dreaded to think what Ianto looked like bald.

He watched as Dylan entered the room, the nurse beside Ianto's bed smiling up at him as Dylan explained who he was before he was sitting down hesitantly in the visitor's chair. Ianto didn't react, just continued to lie there, an IV port in his good hand dripping blood and saline and antibiotics and god knew what else. Jack didn't really care as long as they were keeping him alive.

Jack witnessed Dylan's hand reaching out towards Ianto's hand, before hesitating. He pulled back slightly before his hand came to rest on Ianto's forearm, wizened fingers flexing slightly as if they wanted to tighten their grip before Dylan's thumb was rubbing a half circle on Ianto's arm, coming to rest unconsciously on Ianto's pulse point.

Jack's gaze flickered briefly to the heart monitor, numbers on it that weren't zero, which for the moment was reassurance enough for Jack. He turned back down the corridor to Gwen who was still stood there looking slightly lost.

"Come on, we need to be Torchwood for another hour and then we can be family and friends." Jack said, taking her by the elbow and leading her back down the corridor.

"I don't think I can Jack." Gwen whispered as they stood next to the bank of elevators. Jack didn't need clarification on what she meant. He'd heard the words before when Owen and Tosh had died. But it was different now; Ianto wasn't dead. It didn't stop the niggling voice at the back of Jack's mind though filling him up with doubt and insecurities.

**Friday 15th August 5.34pm**

Dylan Jones didn't know what to do with himself as he sat by his son's bedside. He had horrific flashbacks to Canary Wharf and the way for the best part of a week his daughter and his wife had just sat on their living room couch, sobbing in each other's arms. Dylan had wished he'd still worked, wished he'd still had his tailors shop where he could go and immerse himself in the cutting of silk and the pinning of hems. But then if he still had his tailors shop maybe Ianto wouldn't have ever gone to London to work for Torchwood.

Dylan sighed. There was no use blaming himself for things he couldn't change. _No use wishing on the past_, as Rona used to say.

"You can speak to him if you want, it sometimes helps." The nurse encouraged from where she was scribbling briefly on her clipboard, glancing back up at the monitor that held numbers and lines that made no sense to Dylan.

"I wouldn't know what to say." Dylan replied gruffly, his hand still resting gently on Ianto's arm.

"Just talk to him as if he were here, tell him what you've been up to since you last saw him." The nurse tried again, and Dylan glanced at her name badge to note her name was Lisa. That had been the same name as Ianto's girlfriend hadn't it? Or was it Laura? He was sure it began with an L. He was with that Captain of his now. His son was a bloody poof. But Dylan realised that suddenly didn't matter anymore as he watched his son taking what could be his last breath.

"I'm sorry about the way I've been since your Mam died." Dylan said softly, looking at the hospital sheets rather than the damaged face of his son. "You, Ria, Megan and Bryn lost your Mam just as much as I lost my wife. Although Bryn and Megan don't put up with me anymore." Dylan swallowed, finally bringing himself to look up at his son, trying to gaze past his translucent eyelids to his mother's eyes beneath.

"I miss you at Sunday lunch you know. You should come this weekend, you know I'm not much of a cook, but I can probably stretch to fish and chips from the chippie down the road. You can bring that Captain of yours if you like." Dylan encouraged before he was stuttering to a halt again as Ianto remained unmoving.

"You know you're almost being as bad as when you were a teenager. You refused to get up on a morning for school. Your Mam had to drag you out of bed some days, not like when you were a kid. You were up at the crack of dawn, still not wanting to go to school mind, but desperate to go to work with me." Dylan glanced over at the plastic bag full of the remains of Ianto's tattered suit that was poking out of the cupboard under the nightstand.

"I remember when you came back to Cardiff after London, came round the house and said you had a job interview so your Mam fished out that suit of yours from the back of the cupboard that I'd had cut specially for you for your sister's wedding. Don't suppose you still have it mind.

"…back…"

Dylan's head shot up, looking directly at his son's parted lips as they tried to form another word, his eyes not open. Dylan's eyes swivelled towards that of the nurse who was now up on her feet, a hand on Ianto's good shoulder, shaking slightly.

"Ianto?" She asked, shaking again. His eyelids fluttered slightly before another whispered word passed his lips that neither Dylan nor the nurse could make out. Dylan's hand tightened unconsciously round his son's arm.

"Ianto, it's your Dad. You need to wake up." Dylan encouraged, on his feet as well now, leaning over Ianto, almost desperate to see those baby blue eyes.

"…back of…" Ianto whispered again, his head turning slightly towards Dylan who had a frown on his face.

"Back of what cariad?" Dylan pressed, his fingers moving down so that he was squeezing Ianto's hand between his.

"…wardrobe…" Ianto struggled out. Dylan caught the nurse smiling across the bed at him as Dylan continued to look confused.

"I think he means that suit you were talking about." The nurse supplied with a smile before turning her head back to her patient.

"Ianto pet, I need you to open your eyes for me. Can you do that love?" The nurse spoke loudly and clearly as Dylan flopped backwards into the visitor's chair, refusing to let go of his son's hand until the nurse insisted to check Ianto's reflexes. He let a tentative smile pass his lips though when dull blue eyes, heavy with exhaustion and pain turned to regard him.

"Come to work with you?" Ianto stuttered out dopily, confused as to his whereabouts as he took in the sight of his father before him, presuming himself to still be five years old again.

"Course you can ma boy." Dylan agreed, a doleful smile on his face now as he watched Ianto's eyes closing again.

"'k. Five more minutes."

Dylan watched as Ianto slipped back to sleep again, tears brimming in Dylan's eyes now that he refused to let fall.

"He'll be a bit confused the first couple of times he wakes up but that's the same with any serious head injury. We'll just need to have a brief chat with him every time, make sure he knows who he is, where he is and when he is, check his responses and that. But it's a good sign that he recognises you, that he seems to remember where his suit is." The nurse was smiling at him, a hand briefly on his shoulder in reassurance before she was heading over to the desk at the end of the ward to report to another nurse stood there.

"Back of the wardrobe." Dylan repeated to himself, giving a brief huff of laughter as his hand reached out to cover Ianto's again**.  
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	13. Chapter 13

**AUTHOR NOTES**: After so much drama over the last however many chapters I thought it only fair to give you all a break from the heartwrenchingness (what?! that's totally a word... now) of it all. So this chapter is just a bit of fluffy hurt/comfort in which everyone gets to see Ianto and declare their love for him... awwwww! Yeah it's not as sappy as I make it sound - honest!

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**Friday 15th August 6.22pm**

Jack was chewing on his bottom lip in thought as he pretended to listen to Police Chief Roberts who was currently regaling him chapter and verse on how on earth he was going to explain this one away. Jack's mind was elsewhere though, about three floors above sat at the side of Ianto Jones' bed watching him breathing in and out, hoping each breath wasn't his last one.

He could see Gwen further down the corridor talking to a group of relieved looking parents, trying to spin them some cock and bull story about the kidnappers being interviewed as they spoke. Rhys was busy chatting amenably with one of the kids who was swinging his legs happily back and forth on one of the waiting room chairs, apparently none the worse for his ordeal.

"Excuse me, but they're waiting for you outside Sir." A young constable interrupted Roberts tirade on Jack, which he was grateful for.

"So what cock and bull are you wanting to spin this time Captain Harkness?" Roberts was asking, a distinct manipulation of the word Captain to make it sound like it was a title Jack didn't deserve. Jack didn't rise to the bait; he was too tired and too worried to care.

"Immigrants trying to export children to third world countries for child labour purposes. Although I wouldn't give it all away now since you're detaining the suspects."

"And what am I supposed to do with a couple of invisible suspects? Make them vanish into thin air?" Roberts spat back.

"I'm sure you'll think of something." Jack gave him a disarming grin before he was striding away past Roberts down the corridor towards Gwen.

"Son of a-" Roberts muttered behind Jack before he was heading towards the entrance of Cardiff A&E, striding out into the limelight of the media with a brave face.

Jack took a hold of Gwen's elbow, guiding her away from the parents she was talking to.

"I'm going to go check on Ianto. Come up when you've finished." Jack told her, pressing a bottle of retcon into her hand.

"Jack they're kids." Gwen argued, her face set in steely determination even if her eyes betrayed her.

"They don't remember what happened. Half of them are confused as to how they got from where they were to the warehouse in Barry. And even if they did remember it can be passed off as a child's imagination." Gwen reasoned. Jack nodded but he didn't take the pills back when Gwen tried to press them into his hand.

"Just in case." Jack said as he walked away.

**Friday 15th August 8.29pm**

Jack let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding as he stumbled out into the corridor, leaning against the coffee machine.

Ianto was awake and alive.

Jack had been sat by his bed for the last two hours, willing him to open his eyes again after the nurse had informed him of his previous bout of consciousness. He didn't dare to believe it until he saw it with his own eyes, until he saw those baby blue depths staring up at him.

Jack let out a choked sob as he brought a hand to his mouth to try and stifle the second one that burst from him. Before he knew it though tears were falling down his face as he sobbed profusely, boots coming down the corridor towards him at a steady jog.

"Oh God Jack." Gwen's voice sounded broken as she wrapped arms around him, pulling him towards her. His face slotted into the curve of her neck, her hair tickling his nose as he continued to cry tears of relief. He felt Gwen crying as well and he wanted to tell her that everything was all right, he was crying because it was all over and he finally could, but he couldn't find his voice.

"Mr. Harkness?" A nurse called politely from outside ward Ianto was in. Jack sniffed, pulling away from Gwen and hastily wiping at his tears.

"We've finished our tests, and he's asking for you."

"But I thought," Gwen sounded breathless as she looked between the nurse and Jack, only now could she see the smile on his face through the tears.

"Jack you idiot." Gwen thumped him in the chest with both fists. "I thought he was." Gwen started crying again with the relief that washed over her before Jack had his hand in hers and was leading her towards Ianto's ward, not giving either of them time enough to compose themselves so that when they stepped through the door into the room Ianto frowned at them.

"Who died?" Ianto asked softly, his words slurring slightly as he blinked tiredly back up at them.

Gwen gave Ianto's foot a shove in annoyance before she was flinging herself into his arms. He gave a grunt of pain causing Gwen to pull back slightly, but still refusing to let go of him.

"You almost did you idiot!" She sobbed into his shoulder as he reached up a hand to stroke at her hair. Ianto's drowsy gaze moved to Jack who was stood at the foot of the bed, bloodshot eyes watching him intently, a look of relief on his face.

"Finn n' other kids ok?" Ianto asked shakily. Jack didn't fail to notice that Ianto was missing out words. He worried that it would be permanent but both the nurse and doctor had informed him that it was a common side effect for patients with severe brain injuries to be confused or have reduced speech functions for a while. It would disappear as Ianto healed.

Jack nodded in reply. "Ria's with Finn at the moment getting him checked out. She'll be up in a bit and we called all the other parents. Few bumps and bruises but for the most part they don't remember anything."

Ianto looked confused as he tried to quirk an eyebrow at Jack, Gwen finally pulling herself away from Ianto's shoulder, her hand clutching at his good one, unwilling to let go of him now she had him back.

"I didn't give them retcon before you ask. They just don't remember. What about you, do you-?"

"I remember things." Ianto answered like he was trying to strain to remember before he turned to Gwen suddenly. "My sister here?"

Gwen looked confused for a minute, looking hesitantly at Jack since he'd only just mentioned Ria. Jack returned her look with one that said he would explain later

"Course she is sweetheart, do you want me to go and get her?" Gwen enthused, watching as Ianto nodded before she was squeezing Ianto's hand and bending to place a kiss on his forehead. Ianto could see her streaky mascara and tired eyes up close before she was gone from his side, the door clicking closed behind her as Ianto's drowsy gaze shifted to Jack who was still stood to attention at the foot of the bed.

"I need to go and speak with Roberts, the Police Chief again." Jack hesitated before he moved to the door.

"Jack?" Ianto called after him sleepily. Jack spun back to Ianto, meeting his glazed expression.

"Come back." Ianto whispered dopily, his eyes sliding closed. Jack watched him as his breathing evened out as sleep took him. He hesitated, his hand on the doorknob, lip quivering, and scared even to blink in case Ianto disappeared again.

"Jack?" Gwen's voice echoed in his ear.

"Roberts is kicking up a storm down here. I think he's heading your way now though." Gwen's voice sounded strained and Jack let out a sigh.

"I'm coming down."

Jack took one last look at Ianto before he slipped out of the room.

**Friday 15th August 8.52pm**

"Uncle Ianto?" A small voice sounded from the doorway, muffling a faint sob as Ianto tried to blink himself back to consciousness. He rolled his head to the side and found his nephew moving towards him, pulling the visitors chair close to the bed so he could climb up.

"Hey kid." Ianto's voice sounded dopey to his own ears. Finn crawled onto the covers, looking intently at Ianto.

"You okay?" Ianto asked, concern evident in his voice even if he couldn't make his eyes focus on Finlay long enough to look concerned. Finn gave a tentative nod.

"Will it hurt if I hug you?" Finn asked nervously, placing a hand gently on Ianto's stomach in experimentation.

"Might hurt my feelings if you don't." Ianto teased, his words slurring slightly as Finn lay down with his head on Ianto's torso, arms stretching round him, hugging him tightly. Ianto wheezed slightly causing Finn to jump back in alarm.

"S'okay." Ianto reassured even though he could feel his chest tightening again as he tried to draw breath. Ianto brought his good arm round to rest on Finn's head as the little boy lay back down again beside Ianto this time, but continuing to hang on for dear life.

"I asked you to get him back for me Ianto not almost kill yourself in the process." Ria sounded terrified as she finally stepped into the room. She was as white as a sheet, eyes bloodshot and her slight frame shaking slightly. She sunk gratefully into the chair beside the bed, clutching at Ianto's hand as tears started slipping down her face.

"'m sorry." Ianto's voice was faint now as he struggled to keep his eyes open but he was busy staring intently at what once had been a baby bump.

"The baby?" Ianto questioned, his gaze drifting to Ria's bloodshot eyes.

"Premature, but taking after her Uncle by fighting to stay in this world." Ria said softly, a warm smile breaking onto her face as she squeezed Ianto's hand, a relieved expression spreading across her face as she leant her elbows on the side of the bed, pulling Ianto's hand up to her mouth and kissing the grazed knuckles.

"All I kept thinking was I wish Mam was here." Ria whispered, eyes downcast and looking at the edge of the bed so she missed Ianto's involuntary flinch.

"It was like Canary Wharf again, waiting to hear if you were alive or if," Ria's voice got caught in her throat as tears continued to stain her cheeks. Ianto's hand wearily extracted itself from Ria's long enough to wipe away the tears.

"I'm here." Ianto whispered gruffly. "I'm alive."

Ianto's eyes were drooping, exhausted by the brief interaction. He could still feel Finlay lying heavily beside him, possibly asleep. Before he slipped into unconsciousness again though he swore he heard the word 'just' pass his sister's lips.

**Friday 15th August 9.35pm**

When Jack returned Ianto was curled on his side in the bed, a pillow hugged to his chest and his eyes half lidded in exhaustion. Jack crossed to the bed nervously, watching the young man carefully as he took slow and steady breaths. Someone had put an oxygen mask over his face to ease his obviously painful breathing. He could see the chest tube that they'd inserted to try and re-inflate Ianto's lung just below his left shoulder that was severely bruised. In fact there wasn't a part of Ianto's body that was in sight that wasn't covered in cuts or bruises. He had a horrified flashback to when they'd been to the countryside. Ianto had protested that he was fine as Owen had all but manhandled him onto the autopsy bench, instructing Jack to help him with his clothes. Jack hadn't needed telling twice but as he'd lifted the black t-shirt over Ianto's head Jack had actually felt physically sick, sorely wishing he had killed the fuckers instead of turning them over to Powys constabulary.

As Jack's hand hovered over Ianto's forehead he wished he had someone to blame for all this. But all it had been was a little lost boy trying to find his way home. Jack had not had time to think about him since they'd discovered Ianto and the other kids. But now he realised how odd it had been that the boy had not been waiting for he and Gwen when Ianto and the other kids had returned. Jack didn't want to dwell on it now though, he had more important things to attend to.

Jack swept back the ruffled hair on Ianto's forehead in a soothing gesture. His thumb drew circles on the side of Ianto's head, trying to comfort him as he dozed fitfully. He roused when Jack bent to press a chaste kiss to the only bit of skin on his forehead that wasn't scraped and bruised.

"Jack?" Ianto mumbled half waking, a hand reaching lazily up to pull the mask away from his face.

"I'm going to let you get some rest." Jack whispered softly, barely an inch away from Ianto's face as he put the mask back in place.

"Don't." Ianto whispered back, a hand weakly lifting from the covers and latching on to Jack's wrist.

"Stay here." Ianto tried to shuffle over in the bed, making room for Jack, but Jack looked reluctant, glancing back towards the door like he wasn't allowed to be in the room in the first place.

"Please." Ianto whispered, and when Jack looked back he could see tears in Ianto's eyes.

"Don't wanna be alone."

Jack frowned before bending to kiss Ianto's forehead again. He didn't say anything, just toed off his shoes and pulled his coat from his back, laying it over the visitor's chair. He pulled himself up onto the bed beside Ianto, careful of wires and tubes as he reached over Ianto to pull up the bed railings to stop either of them falling out. Ianto settled himself into the side of Jack, his uninjured arm coming across to clutch at the front of Jack's shirt. Jack pressed another kiss through the bandages round Ianto's head, inhaling deeply and relishing in the smell of Ianto that seemed to permeate through as he held him close. He had things to do, he needed to go back and check on the hub, he'd promised he'd call Gwen, but all that suddenly didn't matter. Ianto was here, alive, in his arms.

Jack felt tears brimming in his eyes as he buried his face in Ianto's hair, listening to the even breath sounds coming from Ianto as he drifted to sleep.

**Friday 15th August 11.42pm**

Gwen knocked on the door to Ianto's room, waiting for a reply. She'd been worried about Jack when he hadn't called and when she'd tried to call him his phone had been switched off. She'd spent most of the evening looking at her phone until Rhys could stand it no more and had bundled Gwen into the car, driving her to the hospital. Now he was stood behind her, encouraging her to go into the hospital room.

When she refused to move Rhys stepped in front of her, opening the door and stepping into the room. He was met by the sight of Jack and Ianto asleep on the hospital bed together, blissfully unaware of the world outside them. Rhys blushed and turned away slightly at the sight as Gwen stepped in beside him, her hand reaching out for Rhys'. She gave a watery smile before she tugged on his hand, pulling him out of the room.

"Now you know why he didn't call." Rhys said softly as he shut the door behind him. "He had more important things to do."

Gwen turned to look at Rhys', unsure at first if he was joking or not. She could see the serious look in his eyes though as he glanced back through the window, one last glimpse of the sleeping men before he was leading Gwen back down the corridor. They paused at the nurses' station though.

"Couldn't get the man visiting Ianto Jones to call Gwen Cooper when he wakes up?" Rhys asked the staff nurse with a smile. She returned his smile with a wry grin of her own.

"I'll let him know you were looking for him." The staff nurse replied.

**Saturday 16th August 3.24am**

Jack woke to the sound of laughter drifting under the door of the ward. He blinked dazedly in the light filtering in from the nurses' station as there was another cackle of laughter that made Jack smile. He didn't know what the nurses were laughing at but it filled him with joy that people could find mirth in such dark and desperate times.

He listened to their giggling, trying to make out what they were talking about but failing, instead deciding to bask in their mirth as he lay on the bed, his arms still wrapped round Ianto. He listened to the now steady rise and fall of Ianto's chest with each dreamy breath. Someone had been in and removed the oxygen mask, replacing it with a cannula, impressively without waking either him or Ianto. Jack listened to the squeak of someone's shoes in the corridor outside and the rattle of a bed as it was pushed down the corridor. He took a moment just to sit and not think, just relish in the feeling of Ianto's hand against his chest, Ianto's hair tickling the underside of his chin. It didn't last though before he realised he hadn't phoned Gwen to let her know how Ianto was. He hadn't sorted things out with the police, he hadn't sorted things out at the hub; Myfanwy had probably eaten Janet by now.

He let out a soft sigh before he extracted himself from Ianto's hold. He expected Ianto to rouse, to have to explain to the Welshman that he had things to do but he would be back as soon as possible, but Ianto didn't so much as stir. He was exhausted, both physically and emotionally. And Jack had no doubt in believing that he was mentally shattered as well. He knew he would have to talk to Ianto about what had happened to him eventually, but Jack had vowed to let him recover a little physically before opening up more wounds to the air.

Jack gently placed Ianto's broken arm on a pillow that had been left in the visitor's chair before he pulled up the covers over Ianto, tucking him in like he was a four-year-old toddler rather than a twenty-four year old man. He bent to kiss him on the brow before he retrieved his shoes and coat, quietly slipping out the room so as not to wake the other patients.

He found three nurses sat at their station with mugs of tea. The staff nurse looked up at him apologetically.

"Sorry, we didn't wake you did we?" She asked sympathetically, suddenly worried she had woken most of her patients up.

"No, its fine. It's good to hear someone enjoying themselves." Jack smiled genuinely, putting his boots on the floor so he could slip his feet into them.

"I just wanted to let you know I need to go into work for a couple of hours, in case he wakes up and asks for me." Jack commented, looking slightly bashful now.

"Right you are, love." The nurse nodded, smiling warmly at him.

"Also thank you for letting me sleep with him." Jack added as he bent to tie his shoelaces.

"We keep the patients best interests at heart and if he's going to sleep easier with you holding him then we won't begrudge it."

Jack looked up to find the young woman smiling again as he brought himself to his feet, shrugging on his greatcoat as he returned her smile.

"Before you go though Captain Harkness, someone was looking for you while you were asleep. A Gwen Cooper asked if you would call her when you woke up." One of the other nurses piped up.

"Its Jack, and thanks. I'll give her a call." Jack smiled once more before he walked away from the nurses' station towards the exit, glancing back over his shoulder, scared that Ianto would be stood in the corridor forlornly watching him go. He wasn't though, and Jack almost felt a stab of disappointment at that.


	14. Chapter 14

**AUTHOR NOTES**: I was going to wait until I'd written the next bit as well (with actual plot) to post this but I thought you'd all waited long enough since I've been away over the weekend at the Hub. squee Such an awesome time - but enough of making you jealous! ;) Back to the boy kissing! :P

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**Saturday 16th August 11.04am**

"The missing children have now been returned to their parents after being found by police in a collapsed warehouse out at the docks in Barry. All of the children were unharmed after the incident. Police have yet to confirm if they have arrested the kidnapper but have been quoted as saying, 'the children are back home with their parents now, safe and sound. That is all that concerns us at the moment.'

"A male body was found in Splott this morning after being."

Ianto changed the television channel. Fed up of the news being nice and vague as usual, flicking past Jeremy Kyle and morning children's television as well. He debated watching Will and Grace on Channel Four, but was unsure his ribs would hold up to the chuckling. He turned the television off, putting the remote back down on the bed before reaching for the glass of water on the bedside table. His hand didn't even get halfway there before someone was holding the glass out to him.

"Anything interesting on television?" Jack asked as he sat down in the visitor's chair, pulling it closer to the bed.

"Apparently police found the missing children in a warehouse on Barry. No one was harmed." Ianto commented, taking a sip of water before handing it back to Jack. Jack had an intense look in his eyes as he stared at Ianto, unblinking for a moment before he was changing the subject.

"Not bald then." Jack joked as he watched Ianto blinking blearily up at him, a confused look on his face as Jack reached out a hand to run it through Ianto's hair. There was still a large square of white gauze on the side of Ianto's head though that ran into his hairline, so there was no doubt he at least had a bald patch. Jack also noted the chest tube had gone, but Ianto still had a pillow clutched to the side of his chest, presumably to relieve the strain of breathing somewhat.

"Apparently not." Ianto replied rather gruffly. Since Jack had left, Ianto had been moved to a private room opposite the nurses' station in another ward, no longer needing twenty-four hour surveillance.

"My head feels big." Ianto confessed. "Does it look big?"

Jack laughed. "No bigger than normal. Although if I called you a hero I'm sure it would inflate your ego."

Ianto actually blushed before he was frowning, obviously straining to remember something.

"Was my Dad here?"

Jack nodded. "He came to see how you were, was there when you woke up the first time. Said you were talking about the suit you'd worn to your sister's wedding being at the back of the wardrobe."

Ianto frowned, a smile playing on his lips though. "Seems even when I'm brain damaged I've still got my priorities straight."

"You're not brain damaged." Jack jumped in almost immediately, a serious tone to his voice now. Ianto looked mildly scared before he was reaching out a hand to reassure Jack.

"I'm joking. The doctor spoke to me this morning. Told me about my injuries and how sever they could have been but they're impressed with how quickly I'm healing." Ianto reassured, noting how Jack was still apprehensive.

"Nurse told me I had excellent vocabulary skills." Ianto joked. "She even suggested a gold star reward system."

"You must be getting better if you can wind me up." Jack smirked.

"Your Dad said he'd come back later on today by the way. He's worried about you," Jack hesitated, before he was pulling his hand away from Ianto's.

"You know I was so worried that you'd got lost in the Rift, that you were going to come back and I would have to take you to Flat Holm." Jack looked down at his hands, fidgeting with the end of his sleeve and a loose thread there.

"And then when you did come back, and you were just lying there in amongst the rubble, I suddenly wished that you had come back to me screaming for your mother and mentally beyond salvation, because then at least you'd be alive." Jack's voice had a hoarse quality to it now as he continued to pull at the thread, almost trying to unravel his jacket.

"Stop it." Ianto's voice was soft as he reached out his good hand, placing it on top of Jack's fidgeting ones.

"I'm not going to sow it all back together if you unravel it." Ianto said, grasping Jack's hands weakly in his now.

"Also stop working yourself up over nothing. I'm still here, mostly unharmed, and not any crazier than I was when I left." Ianto joked.

Jack looked up at him finally, taking Ianto's hand in his, that intense look back in his eyes again, finally realising he would have to take the direct approach if he was ever going to get anything out of Ianto.

"What happened to you?"

Ianto took a shuddering breath. "I only remember bits." He admitted almost sheepishly. He didn't really want to talk about what had happened, not now, but he could see Jack was looking for some kind of reassurance no matter how hollow.

"I remember being in the street with you and seeing my Mam. She called out to me and I never thought that it was wrong that she was there and alive, all I cared about was getting to her. I could feel her arms around me Jack, and I was five years old again, her smelling like she always does." Ianto gave a tentative smile. He wasn't lying. It had been like that, however brief that relief of being loved so unequivocally had lasted.

"Then I don't know where I was, but it was okay, because my Mam was there." Ianto paused, his brain flailing a bit as he tried to think of a suitable alternative to what had really happened.

"I know that the other children weren't there, that Finlay wasn't there, but I felt safe, like someone was watching out for me." Ianto lied through his teeth, watching Jack as he seemed to take it all in, not questioning him, which was Ianto's first tip off that Jack didn't buy a word he was saying, but he let him continue.

"I didn't really have a concept of time or place, not until I was spat back out in that warehouse, then the Rift seemed to collapse in on itself, like it was trying to rectify what it had done." Ianto gave a half shurg.

"Did you see anyone apart from your Mam?" Jack asked eventually when Ianto was no longer forthcoming. Ianto hesitated before he gave a slight shake of his head, his eyes never wavering from Jack's. Ianto was a skilled liar, had to be with the job he did, but Jack, he knew, could always see right through his façade. He tried not to look away from those startlingly blue eyes as he remembered that little boy staring at him with the same intensity.

Eventually Jack's hand reached out for Ianto's again, cupping over it.

"As long as your back safe and sound." Jack mumbled through a sigh

**Saturday 16th August 4.17pm**

Owen was curled round Ianto's plaster cast, holding on with mucky paws, his ears flopping over his upper arm. Gwen could see other signs that Ianto's nephew had been to visit that morning. There was a card on the bedside table with a drawing of what appeared to be someone in a blue cape, the words 'Get Well Soon' scrawled underneath. Gwen smiled as she picked it up, reading the message inside.

"Super Ianto gets to wear Jack's coat." Ianto mumbled, startling Gwen as he smiled up at her.

"Is this metaphorically or literally?" Gwen asked as she put the card back, sitting down in the visitor's chair.

"Metaphorically I think, I don't think I've got the energy to wrestle the coat from Jack." Ianto replied round a yawn, shifting slightly as he felt the rabbit on his arm, realising he must have fallen asleep before his sister and nephew left.

Gwen laughed. "I'll get Rhys and his mates to rugby tackle him for you."

Gwen watched as Ianto reached across his body to pick up Owen the rabbit, regarding him with a critical eye.

"Looks like you've got someone looking after you." Gwen smiled, nodding towards the rabbit.

"I must look bad if Finn left Owen to look after me." Ianto said, trying to sound like he was joking, but Gwen really couldn't see the funny side as she took in his appearance. He was a far cry from the usual immaculate Ianto she was used to. His hair was in need of a wash and he had more than a five o'clock shadow on his face now. It wasn't just the fact he was unkempt though, he looked exhausted even though he'd been asleep nearly the whole weekend, his bruises were starting to turn a sickly yellow colour which Gwen knew meant he was healing but it just made him look jaundiced under the hospital lighting.

"Just as handsome as ever." Gwen said, a slightly teasing tone to her voice as she picked up Owen from where Ianto had laid him back down on the bed, brushing his fur away from his eyes so he could see out them again.

"You here on your own then?" Ianto enquired, watching Gwen carefully as she continued to stare intently at the rabbit in front of her.

"Yeah," She admitted after a long pause. "Jack's been on the phone to UNIT and Whitehall nearly all day. He lacks your diplomacy though. I think he told one official that he was an 'autocratic pen pusher with a banana shoved up his arse'. There may be some damage control when you get back." Gwen smiled sheepishly.

Ianto gave a dramatic sigh and roll of the eyes.

"He's worried about you, you know." Gwen broke the silence again, still not looking up at Ianto as she adjusted Owen, propping him up against the side of Ianto's leg so his ears flopped over his eyes.

"He said. Several times, but I keep telling him that I'll be okay." Ianto tried to reassure.

Gwen was busy picking invisible pieces of fluff off of the hospital blanket now.

"He says you lied to him about what you remembered." Gwen voiced again, still avoiding Ianto's gaze, which gave him reason to believe she'd been told to leave it alone and not question Ianto on it under any circumstances. But when had Gwen Cooper ever listened?

"I did." Ianto replied. It wasn't that he couldn't lie to Gwen, it was just he was tired of lying, and he didn't want to talk about it. He'd known Jack would see through the tale he had spun, but Jack had needed reassurance instead of a sorrowful, 'I don't want to talk about it'. So Ianto had talked, spinning him falsehoods and lies to put Jack at ease because even though Ianto was the one lying in the hospital bed, Jack had been through just as much, if not physically then emotionally. Ianto could see that from how tired Jack looked and how his eyes filled with tears every time he looked at Ianto.

Gwen opened her mouth like she was going to say something, finally looking up at Ianto, with an intense piercing gaze. But instead of protesting she just reached out and grabbed at his hand.

"What happened to me isn't going to change the world, so I'll talk when I'm ready." Ianto said sleepily, squeezing Gwen's hand back. She gave him a teary nod before she was bending forward to kiss him on the lips, lingering so he felt salty tears moist on his own lips. She pulled back, sniffing slightly and giving him a watery smile before she was changing the subject.

"You've not got a lot of signatures on there." Gwen motioned to Ianto's cast as he raised it off the bed slightly so she could see where the name Finn stared up at her in bright lime green letters. Gwen giggled.

"There's pens in the cupboard if you want to lend your artistic abilities to the cause." Ianto encouraged as Gwen got up from the bed, going to retrieve them.

"Should have brought Rhys with me, he's a dab hand at drawing stick figures." Gwen joked as she sat back down again, picking up a red pen from the pile of felt tips Finn had left behind.

"As good as Jack?" Ianto asked, raising his eyebrow slightly before he was lifting his arm again, rotating it so Gwen could see a couple of stick figures nestled in the crook of Ianto's elbow doing unsavoury things.

"Have the nurses seen that?" Gwen asked as she giggled again.

"One of them came in while he was drawing it, and he was more than happy to explain the logistics of it to her. Thankfully Finn had already drawn on my cast." Ianto replied sarcastically as Gwen tugged a blue pen from the pile as well.

"I think embarrassing revenge is in order." Gwen proclaimed as she started to draw a stick figure that resembled Jack on Ianto's arm, causing him to sigh sleepily.

"You'll be hanging me in the Louvre by the end of the week."

**This is what Gwen had missed; Ianto's humour, making the best out of dire situations. This is what she had needed the past week. She just hoped she would never have cause to lose it, or lose him, again.  
**


	15. Chapter 15

**AUTHOR NOTES**:I know it doesn't seem like much of an explanation for the boy since it's all very vague and airy fairy - but the more astute of you will probably be able to figure it out by all the hints I've been dropping both in this chapter and previous ones. If not - it will get spelled out for you when Ianto reveals what happened to him while he's been away!

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**Saturday 16th August 9.55pm**

Jack's footsteps resonated loudly down the hospital corridor. It was eerily silent this time of night as he strode purposefully away from the lifts towards Ianto's room. He passed the silent nurses station that looked like Ianto had tided it. There wasn't a piece of paper out of place, not even a mug or a pen. There was no staff nurse about and no cheery banter or laughter filled the air. Jack could hear himself breathing, short sharp breathes like he had been running for his life, his heart thundering in his chest as he turned into Ianto's room.

The bed was made, crisp white sheets being pulled tightly across the bed as a nurse remade it. She was humming quietly to herself, a tune that sounded so hauntingly familiar to Jack's ears. She smiled up at him as he entered the room, smoothing out the last of the wrinkles on the bed before picking up the vase of dead roses from the nightstand.

"Where's Ianto?" Jack questioned, breath hitching in his throat as the nurse moved towards him, her smile never faltering as she filled his whole vision.

"He's gone."

Jack blinked and she was gone. The hospital room clinically empty as he took a step towards the hospital bed. The lights flickered overhead, drawing Jack's attention, and when he looked back down Ianto was in the hospital bed. His pallor was unusually pale, stunting Jack's relief somewhat as he took a hesitant step towards the bed.

"Ianto?"

Ianto was deathly still as Jack reached out a hand to him. His fingers brushed against flawless skin, all trace of bruising gone from his face that was icy to the touch.

"Ianto?" Jack called again, as if the sound of his own name would breathe life back into his corpse. For that was all Ianto was now, another dead body. Jack's arms came round him, lifting him from the bed, tapping almost comically at his face to try and revive him. Ianto's arms hung loose at his sides, flopping back onto the bed, joints stiff with rigor mortis.

"Ianto!"

There was desperation in Jack's voice now as he hefted the dead weight of Ianto in his arms, pulling him closer to his chest, tears cascading down Jack's cheeks and falling unchecked onto Ianto's translucent eyelids. Jack's lips pressed firmly against Ianto's, but there was no life in them now, nothing to indicate to Jack that he was still of this world.

"Please." Jack begged silently to a God he didn't believe in as his fingers traced his own tears across Ianto's slack face.

"He's gone Jack. He's not coming back."

Jack's head shot up at the voice, eyes wide with fear as he took in the sight of his brother. Startling blue eyes looked down at him in sorrow and sympathy, something almost akin to forgiveness.

"Gray?"

Jack sat bolt upright, scattering papers off his desk as he reached out blindly for some purchase on reality. His cheeks were wet with tears as he scrubbed a hand down his face. He let a shuddering sigh pass his lips as he reached out for his phone that was still resting on the end of the desk. He dialled without thinking, listening as a cheery Welsh voice greeted him on the other end of the line.

"Hello, It's Jack Harkness here. I'm just calling to check on an Ianto Jones."

He heard the hesitancy in his voice as he waited with bated breath. He almost let out a sigh of relief as he heard the words, 'He's asleep,' drift back down the phone line to him. He wanted to ask the nurse to go and check, to just make sure that he was still breathing but he didn't want to sound desperate or needy so he listened to the nurse telling him that Ianto had eaten dinner and drunk his coffee. Jack could picture Ianto mentally revolting at instant coffee but being too polite to actually say anything.

Jack heard a chocked sob pass his lips as he brought a hand to his mouth to try and stifle anymore that were forthcoming.

"Everything alright Mr. Harkness?" The nurse asked him down the phone.

"I'm fine." Jack reassured, giving a watery smile that the nurse couldn't see but hoped translated in his voice.

"Thanks for the update."

Jack pressed the end call button on his phone, flipping it shut and resting his palms flat on his desk as he took in another shuddering breath.

"Can I go home now?"

Jack almost fell off his seat in shock. He turned sharply towards the little boy that was so suddenly stood at the door of his office, staring in at Jack with a wide-eyed innocent expression. Jack took a deep breath, trying to gather himself as the boy came further into the room, his eyes never wavering from Jack's.

"You held up your part of the deal." Jack replied before he was fumbling for bits of paper on his desk, clutching them tightly in a fist before he was pulling himself to his feet. Jack could hear his heart thundering in his chest as he crossed the room to the little boy, hesitantly holding out a hand to him.

"We need to go back to where you first appeared." Jack encouraged when the little boy vacillated. Big sorrowful eyes looked up at Jack full of innocence, before he was grasping Jack's hand in his.

**Saturday 16th August 10.01pm**

Rhiannon watched as her oldest child slept peacefully in her arms. His thumb was stuck in his mouth as his head lolled against Ria's shoulder. She should have put him to bed hours ago but she couldn't bear to move him from her arms, couldn't bear losing him again. He clutched at the front of the jumper she had on. It was Ianto's. She'd dug it out of the laundry basket and it had a heady scent of aftershave and sweat on it. It didn't smell completely like Ianto, it smelt of Jack as well which suggested that the last time Ianto had worn it he'd spent the night Jack, or Jack had been wearing Ianto's clothes. A year ago Rhiannon wouldn't have thought that possible but the memory of Jack falling apart in the bathroom was still fresh in her mind and she realised quite suddenly for all Jack had put Ianto back together after everything, it was Ianto who now kept Jack from falling apart.

Finn's hand clutched tighter to the jumper, his little nose snuffling the shoulder of the fabric. Rhiannon had seen Finn earlier on looking for something to cuddle, mildly regretting leaving Owen at the hospital to look after Ianto. Ria had been kind enough to go and dig Alf out of Ianto's room. Finn had reluctantly taken him at first, almost unsure of the alien with the weird brown quiff. Rhiannon knew that Alf smelt bad, even though Ianto had washed him only recently. He'd never really recovered after Ianto had dropped him in the penguin enclosure at the zoo when he was four years old. But that hadn't seemed to matter to Ianto.

Alf was now perched at the other end of the couch, blindly watching the television through his plastic eyes, probably taking in more of it than Ria was at this moment in time. Finn had been so careful with Alf, not dragging him around the house by the ear, like he so often did with Owen, but carefully carrying him with two arms and placing him out of harms way at every available opportunity. It was like he was scared Alf was going to break, maybe a reflection on how he felt about his Uncle at this moment in time. Ria didn't blame him in all honesty. A few days ago she'd come so close to losing her family. Now though she had Finn back in her arms, her brother was back as well, falling apart that little bit more, and her new child fighting to stay in the world.

Ria pressed a shaky kiss to Finn's forehead before she cooried down in the sofa, shoving her feet under Alf's backside as she turned her attention back to Saturday night television, content to have something akin to normal for the moment.

**Saturday 16th August 10.34pm**

"Is this it?" Jack asked when the boy stopped in the centre of Bute Park. Jack recognised the tree, the remains of blue police tape attached to it, fluttering in the breeze. The little boy didn't say anything, just nodded his head slightly before turning to regard Jack.

"Can I go home now?"

Jack regarded the boy for a long moment, before he was shaking his head almost in disbelief.

"Why did you do it?" Jack asked, a defeated tone to his voice that he wasn't used to hearing. "Why did you take all those kids? Ianto?"

"I only wanted to go home, I didn't mean for anyone to get hurt or lost." The boy replied, tears shimmering in his eyes.

"He almost died!" Jack spat out, before the anger was subsiding as quickly as it came about. "He almost died." Jack repeated, slower this time as if the words were finally sinking in, his own eyes sparkling with unshed tears.

"But, that wasn't my fault." The boy protested.

"How? How was that not your fault? If you hadn't taken him, if you hadn't lost him, if you hadn't sent him back to that warehouse and the rift hadn't imploded he wouldn't be lying in hospital right now!" Jack spat back, anger flaring up in him again that refused to subside as he grabbed the boy by the arms, shaking him slightly.

"Everybody dies." The boy spoke calmly, orbs of world-weary blue seeping into Jack's very soul. "Apart from you Jack."

Jack didn't need reminding of this fact, it stared back at him with it's open jaws every day, threatening and menacing him every time he closed his eyes.

"Everybody you know and love you will lose someday, whether to Torchwood or old age and you will always try to blame someone. Usually yourself. No one will ever stay with you. Your immortality is both a blessing and a curse." The boy spoke frankly, pausing for dramatic emphasis.

"Apart from me Jack, you have to keep me alive."

It took Jack a moment to realise it was his own voice speaking to him now, his own words coming out of the little boys mouth. He was staring into his own eyes that were suddenly so startlingly familiar. They stared back at him out of mirrors everyday looking old before their time.

"Who- who are you?" Jack gasped, stumbling backwards slightly, his hands releasing the boy as if burned by his very presence.

The boy gave a mischievous smile. "Just a boy."

He stepped back away from Jack, a faint glow shimmering behind him that seemed to fill up all of Bute Park with it's light.

"Wait! Where are you going? I thought you wanted to go home?" Jack pleaded. He needed to know more.

"I am home." The boy smiled again before there was a bright flash of light and Jack was flung backwards into a nearby tree. His head connected dully with the bark of the tree before the light and the park were fading from his field of vision.

Jack's phone was ringing when he came too. It was light now, dawn breaking through the gaps in the leaves of the trees as he blindly fished his phone out his pocket.

"Hello?" He said rather gruffly before Gwen was screeching down the phone at him.

"Where the hell have you been Jack? I've been going off my bloody nut trying to get a hold of you!"

Jack pulled himself into a sitting position so his back was leant against the tree. He wiped his hands on his already muddy trousers and cringed slightly when he thought of what Ianto would say.

"I was sending our guest home." Jack supplied before he was hauling himself to his feet, using the tree for support. His head was throbbing where it had connected with the tree.

"Is he gone then?" Gwen asked, a hesitancy to her voice as Jack looked around him. There was no evidence of the previous nights encounter, no sign of the boy anywhere. Jack shoved a hand in his coat pocket, pulling out notes of Rift readings and a flyer for Cardiff Castle that had Ianto's neat handwriting scrawled on it in black biro, 'I fancy being a tourist instead of tourist information this weekend.' Jack smiled.

"He's home."

"How do you know he got home okay?" Gwen was asking down the phone now as Jack emerged blearily onto the path heading out of Bute Park, ignoring the early morning dog walkers as he headed back to the SUV.

"I don't" Jack sighed, crumpling the note up in his hand before shoving it back in his pocket. "I just have to hope."


	16. Chapter 16

**AUTHOR NOTES**: Apologies for the long delay. I could make excuses about essays and real life stuff but you don't want to hear that. So on with the fic...

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**Sunday 17th August 10.24am**

"He's gone."

Jack came out into the hospital corridor in a fluster of panic, looking up and down the hallway as if Ianto was going to magically appear before him.

"Jack?" One of the nurses caught him by the arm as he came haring towards the nurses' station. "What is it?"

"Ianto Jones." Jack pointed wildly down the corridor with one hand while he tried to catch his breath. "He's gone. He's not in his room anymore. Someone's taken him."

"Calm down." The nurse reprimanded. "He won't have gone far." She tried to placate him as she moved round the back of the desk, picking up the phone.

"I might have an inkling of where he'll be." The nurse gave a cheery smile to Jack as she entered an internal number which rung twice before someone picked up.

"Oh hello Margaret, it's Debbie from the Mitchell Ward." There was a brief pause where pleasantries were exchanged. "I was wondering if you've got a patient of mine down there." The nurse gave a little titter of a laugh that made Jack's blood boil slightly. How could she find time to laugh when Ianto was missing, possibly taken by somebody or something?

"No, it's fine. I'll send someone down for him." The nurse hung the phone up before beaming up at Jack.

"He's down in paediatrics visiting his niece. It's usually where we find him when he's gone walk-a-about." The nurse supplied as Jack felt the lead weight lifting from his stomach.

He found Ianto sat in a chair beside a little plastic box. He had on his dressing gown over his hospital pyjamas, which Ria must have fetched from home since Jack hadn't had the time or the energy. They'd said Ianto could go home tomorrow which Jack was almost grateful for even if he had been in the ICU only a couple of days ago. He still didn't look the picture of health but he looked a darn sight closer to life than he had two days ago. Jack wasn't getting the picture of Ianto lain in amongst the rubble of that warehouse in Barry out of his head anytime soon. It lingered there beside Toshiko lying prone in the medical bay and the remains of Owen that he had retrieved – alone.

He stood on the other side of the ward door as he watched Ianto's bruised and scraped fingers clutching at a tiny hand through the side of the plastic box. It took him a moment to realise that it wasn't Ianto doing the clutching though. Tiny fingers were wrapped round one of Ianto's fingers, refusing to let go.

And again Jack was in the past, reminded of Ianto lying prone on the hospital bed, all those wires going in and out of him like they were the only things holding him together. Jack could remember that surge of relief though as he sat there holding Ianto's hand, willing him back to consciousness, when Ianto had grabbed at Jack's hand, however weakly, and held on, refusing to let go. Ianto had been lacking the pink bonnet though, which Jack thought would maybe have made him look even more adorable, but Jack was happy to see him in that dressing gown.

Jack eventually pulled himself together enough to enter the room.

"Thought you'd run away." Jack commented as he came to stand behind Ianto, staring down at the little baby girl in the plastic box. It almost took Jack's breath away as baby blue eyes blinked up at him, filled with a curiosity that Jack still found remarkable.

"Not really one for the running at the moment. Give me a few weeks though and I'll be back to running circles round you." Ianto teased, not taking his eyes off his niece who was still staring up at Jack.

"Do you want to know who the big scary man in the blue coat is?" Ianto asked the baby through the Perspex.

"This is your other Uncle. Although he'd not technically your Uncle." Ianto frowned. "I'm sure your big brother will be able to explain it to you better."

Jack smiled as he watched Ianto talking to his niece.

"Has Ria named her yet?" Jack asked.

"She decided to name her Rona, after Mam." Ianto supplied, his voice catching at the end of the sentence before he was turning towards Jack, pulling himself painfully to his feet.

"Would you like to meet Rona Tegan Lloyd?" Ianto asked, already opening up the box to gain access to his niece. He was lifting her carefully out the box before Jack had a chance to protest.

"Sit down in the chair and take the blanket." Ianto encouraged. Jack did as he was told without hesitation.

When Ianto handed Jack Rona a sudden overwhelming parental instinct towards the child took over him before he pushed it back down into the depths of his stomach. He couldn't stop it surging forth again though as Ianto wrapped the blanket round her, but not before one of her tiny arms broke free and grabbed onto the lapel of Jack's greatcoat. She was still staring up at him with wide blue eyes full of innocent curiosity for the world.

_This,_ Jack thought, _this is why we fight. Not for us but for every miracle, every day, just like this one. _

"Hello." Jack whispered hoarsely as he looked down at the small child in his arms. He felt Ianto move behind him and looked up to find him shuffling slowly towards the exit.

"Ianto?" Jack called after him, sudden worry rising up in him again.

"I'm going back to my bed." Ianto replied tiredly. "Stay as long as you want." Ianto added, smiling when Jack looked like he was going to follow him. Jack nodded, watching Ianto's retreating back before the door swung shut behind him. He saw him collaring a nurse, presumable to escort him back up to the ward. Jack was grateful; Ianto still looked unsteady on his feet.

Jack turned back to Rona who was still watching him intently like he was the most fascinating thing in the world, and he probably was to her at this moment in time, the only thing in her world.

"That's your Uncle Ianto." Jack told her quietly. "He'll tell you fantastic stories and make it better when you get hurt and love you to bits no matter what you do, because that's the kind of man he is."

Jack rocked Rona to sleep, his eyes continuing to gaze down at the small miracle in his arms as he kept on talking about Ianto, about all the things he had done, all the reasons Jack loved him because Jack had to tell someone; someone had to know of the miracle that was Ianto Jones.

"And that's why we love him." Jack finished, his gaze now on the far wall, looking but not seeing the paintings of Winnie the Pooh characters on it as Rona slept peacefully in his arms.

"That's why we love him." Jack repeated, a smile creeping onto his face as tears glistened in his eyes.

**Sunday 17th August 3.07pm**

Ianto stirred slightly when he felt someone tugging on the edge of his bed sheets. He drifted in that place between awake and asleep in a happy haze of drug-induced drowsiness as he listened to the voices floating round the room.

"Oi you! Down from there otherwise you'll wake your Uncle."

"But I wanna play with my trains in the mountains."

"Well you'll just have to play in the valleys on the floor at the moment."

"But I wanna play with Uncy Yan."

"Well you'll have to make do with me for the moment. How about we build a mountain?"

Ianto heard the clattering of Lego bricks against each other.

"Or a castle? Or something?"

"Can we build a castle? Can we build King Ianto's castle? Where Princesses Rhiannon stays with Prince Finn and Sir Jack?"

There was a brief pause as Ianto's eyes fluttered open, trying to grow accustomed to the sunlight streaming in through the window. He caught a glimpse of the incredulous look on Rhys' face before he was nodding.

"Yup, course we can mate."

"You forgot someone." Ianto uttered, a little hoarsely as Finn turned to look at his Uncle, a handful of Lego bricks in each hand.

"Who?"

"There's a new princess in the castle now." Ianto said rather weakly.

"And she can come on adventures with us too!" Finn enthused, bouncing to his feet and dropping the Lego bricks.

"Tell us a story Uncy Yan!" Finn enthused, trying to crawl up onto Ianto's bed again.

"Maybe later trouble, I'm a bit tired at the moment. Maybe Uncle Jack will tell you one later." Ianto said round a yawn.

"Why don't you make that castle and then you can use it later on as part of the story?" Rhys encouraged, lifting Finn up and away from the bed, depositing him back down by the Lego bricks where he quite happily started building walls for his castle.

"Where is everyone?" Ianto asked, shifting slightly in the bed, trying to sit up. Rhys sat himself down in the visitor's chair.

"Gwen and Jack are off chasing things and your sister's got an appointment with the Doctor about the baby. I said I'd watch this one." Rhys explained, titling his head towards Finn who was trying to design a working drawbridge with Lego.

"And me." Ianto added as he laid his head back against his pillow. Rhys glanced back at Ianto, a slight smile on his face. It was like Ianto knew what both Gwen and Jack had said to him before they'd left in a swirl of flapping coats.

"And you." Rhys nodded, gaze not wavering from Ianto's.

"You alright now?" Rhys asked, leaning forward so his elbows rested on his knees and his hands clasped in front of him. Ianto frowned at him, before looking down almost incredulously at his scraped knuckles and plastered arm.

Rhys looked bashful. "I mean better than your were, better for being back, here, with Jack and that I mean, like not wherever else you were. Shut up, Rhys!" Rhys' last sentence sounded like a poor imitation of Gwen's voice.

Ianto let out a slight chuckle. "I'm better than I was." Ianto assured Rhys.

"You looked dead when we found you." Rhys clarified. "Didn't think Jack had it in him to be that upset. He just stopped functioning, clung onto this one," he indicated Finn who was engrossed in his building task. "And wouldn't let go."

Ianto was almost surprised at this revelation. He'd presumed Jack would have gone into full leader mode, barking orders at scared paramedics and firemen.

"He really cares about you." Rhys said softly, watching Ianto for a long moment.

Ianto swallowed slightly, turning away from Rhys. "I know."

Rhys frowned, continuing to watch Ianto as he started to play with the fraying edge of the hospital blanket. Rhys would have thought Ianto would be happy to hear that Jack cared for him, he hadn't expected the almost nervous demeanour Ianto was now showing to be his reaction.

"Rhys?" A small voice distracted Rhys, tugging on his sleeve. "Can you help me please?" Finn asked as he presented Rhys with a hand full of bricks.

"Course I can mate." Rhys said getting up from the chair and lowering himself onto the floor beside Finn. It didn't stop him glancing over at Ianto every minute or so, frowning in contemplation as he watched the other Welshman slipping back into a doze.

**Monday 18th August 2.19am**

Ianto turned over in bed to find Jack slouched in the visitor's chair, asleep. He was startled somewhat at the sight, hadn't seen Jack since – he glanced at his watch on the bedside table – yesterday morning. Jack's head was slouched forward on his chest, arms folded as if he was some cartoon guard fallen asleep on the job. All he needed was a hat falling over his eyes. Ianto didn't know why Jack had found his way back to Ianto's bedside at some godforsaken hour of the morning. Ianto didn't need babysitting, he had nurses to do that, and Rhys as well apparently.

"You don't have to worry about me." Ianto whispered to the sleeping form. Jack didn't so much as stir as Ianto moved his pillows slightly so he could lie down and still see Jack, watching him intently.

"I'm still here, still alive, for now." Ianto continued. "You told me once that I didn't have to be brave around you, you know the same applies to you." Ianto didn't know if he wanted Jack to wake up and listen, or if it would be easier for him just to sleep through his explanation.

"I know that was you who got lost in the Rift from another time and another place. I kept catching glimpses every so often when I was wandering around alone. God I was so alone." The last sentence came out a breathy whisper. "It felt like I was there forever, just wandering around without direction or hope, like I was five years old again and I'd got lost in the supermarket, wandering down unfamiliar aisles with strangers, only there was nothing there. No light. Nothing." Ianto let out a sigh.

"Mam was there at first, Tosh, Owen. Lisa too. But they soon went, and then there was just that boy, just you every so often when I felt like giving up, a flash of blue eyes out of the corner of my eye and I knew I had to get back to you."

"A candle in the dark." The words slurred slightly from Jack's tired lips before he was opening his eyes to take in Ianto. He gave a tentative half smile, almost apologetic for hearing Ianto as he pulled himself up slightly, stretching his back.

"It was you wasn't it?" Ianto asked, not looking at Jack now but at his hands as Jack's clasped over them. Jack shook his head.

"It was an echo of a future me or a past me."

"I don't understand." Ianto confessed, finally looking up at Jack.

"You know how people talk about an inner child, about how you're only as old as you feel?"

Ianto nodded, wondering what this had to do with the boy from the rift.

"He was a warning, a warning from my future self, a projection of my inner child telling me not to lose it, telling me that one day I was going to lose everyone and I had to learn not to lose myself. A warning of what's to come."

"So your telling me that you kidnapped me and half of the children of Cardiff because you didn't want you to get depressed?" Ianto asked scathingly.

"Sort of." Jack frowned, annoyed that his theory had been debunked. "Let's call him my evil twin."

Ianto let out a titter of a laugh before if developed into full-blown chuckling.

"Only you Jack Harkness." Ianto said breathlessly.

"Only the little boy wasn't me." Jack said after a moment of just watching Ianto. Ianto frowned.

"But you just said-" Ianto looked thoroughly confused now.

"He was you, and Gray, and everyone I've ever lost to the Rift. When I looked in his eyes I didn't see a reflection of myself staring back I saw all my failings, all my undoing's. A child for everyone I've lost." Jack's voice was barely above a whisper now as Ianto pulled himself into a sitting position on the bed, tugging on Jack's hands and finally the lapels of his coat to pull him closer. Ianto didn't say anything, just pulled Jack down into a long soothing kiss. When they parted there were tears wet on Jack's face that he wiped at hastily, trying to put on a brave face.

"You don't have to be brave around me." Ianto said softly, a hand reaching up to cradle Jack's cheek, causing Jack to huff out another sob before he lowered his head onto Ianto's lap without encouragement, just taking a moment to bask in the nearness of Ianto as long fingers ran gently through his hair.

**Monday 18th August 6.02am**

The Hub was dead. There didn't even seem to be the whirring of the fans that kept the machines cool. Usually at this time in the morning Ianto would be arriving, brewing his first pot of coffee for the day. There would be the smell of freshly showered Welshman, as well as the lingering smell of sex if Ianto had stayed the night. Tosh would usually not be far behind, tapping away productively at keyboards. Usually the chuckle of laughter as her and Ianto exchanged views on last nights Strictly Come Dancing, coffee cups clicking together and the rustle of digest biscuit wrappers.

Sometimes the sound of a hung-over Owen moaning could be heard, still passed out on the couch from where Ianto had dumped him the night before after picking him up at 3 in the morning from some street corner. Owen usually made it home, but there were rare occasions when he had gotten so drunk he forgot where he lived. Ianto always seemed to be the one he called for a lift home though, which was odd. Sometimes the medic was grumbling for a whole other reason – usually due to being up all night with nothing but an alien corpse for company.

Phones were always ringing, and the whisper of Gwen and Tosh gossiping like schoolgirls could be heard by mid-morning. The shuffle of paperwork, the clatter of dropped pens and instruments, the curses in both Welsh and English over something so trivial as someone using all the post-it notes for things entirely not work related.

There was nothing now. No sound anywhere, least of all the morgue where Jack was now stood next to drawer 37. He swallowed past the lump in his throat as he looked down at the form of his frozen brother, suspended in time and space until Jack figured out what to do with him; if he ever figured out what to do with him. His fingers twitched over the defrost button but nothing would have changed.

Jack would still feel guilty for letting go like he had so many years ago and Gray would still not forgive him. He was all that remained of Jack's family now – of his blood one at any rate, and oddly he was the one that would outlast them all.

**_"Apart from me Jack, you have to keep me alive."_  
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	17. Chapter 17

**AUTHOR NOTES**: Thanks to those of you that have been pestering me to finish this, and also to my beta Sam. I'll apologise again for this taking so long - but in my defence you have had fic in the meantime. Enjoy.

Also those of you that keep asking how much longer until the end - there are 3 more chapters to go. ;)

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**Monday 18th August 2.42pm**

"What's in the bag?" Ianto asked as he watched his sister set a rucksack on the end of the bed. She smiled at him, a genuine smile that didn't quite get rid of the bags under her eyes.

"Something that will probably make you happier than when I brought your toothbrush and dressing gown in for you."

"Is it my slippers?" Ianto teased as he watched Ria unzipping the bag, pulling out a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and a jumper.

"Actual clothes? You think I'm ready?" Ianto mocked, watching as Finn pulled Owen down from the end of the bed where he'd been perched, watching over Ianto for the last few days.

"Well I'm sure Jack would love to escort you home in your pyjamas but we thought clothes would be more suitable." Ria teased before she was laying them out on the bed, like his Mam used to do on the first day of school when he was a kid. She smoothed the creases out of his t-shirt carefully, trying not to look at Ianto, but he could see tears welling in her eyes.

"Ria?" Ianto questioned, his hand reaching out and closing over the top of one of her hands, stilling it. She bit her lip before she was turning to her brother, throwing her arms around him and pulling him close, her small arms imprisoning him as she sobbed.

"Are these happy or sad tears?" Ianto asked after a moment, his good hand coming up to run through his sister's hair.

"I don't know." She confessed, her voice muffled in the neck of Ianto's dressing gown. Ianto tried to stop himself from smiling as he watched Finn who was looking up at them with wide eyes full of confusion.

"What do you think Finn? Do you think Mummy's happy or sad?" Ianto asked his nephew who was clinging onto Owen like Ria was clinging onto Ianto. He looked thoughtful for a long moment.

"Sad, 'cause you got hurt, but you're coming home today Mummy said, so she should be happy, but baby Lloyd is sick too so I suppose she's happy and sad." Finn said eventually and Ianto was impressed with his nephew's intuition. Finn's analysis of the situation had given Ria time to compose herself, pulling back from Ianto slightly. He reached up with the sleeve of his dressing gown to wipe at her eyes and her nose.

"Okay?" Ianto asked, his hand lingering on Ria's cheek as he watched her carefully. She nodded almost unsurely, sniffing before she used her own sleeve to wipe at her nose.

Ianto watched his sister for a moment as she pulled out socks and underwear, placing them down on the bed as well.

"I know you were thinking of getting your own place now you've got the baby, but I could probably do with a hand around the house for a while. Also, I make a good babysitter."

"Is this you being the big brother you think you should be or you genuinely wanting me and the kids to stay?" Ria asked, turning to regard Ianto.

"A bit of both, but I think I would miss you if you moved out. Jack's not always around and the house would be too quiet." Ianto admitted almost sheepishly.

"We'll have to move out eventually Ianto. There's not enough room, especially not when Jack's round."

"So you're not going back to Chris then?"

Ria shook her head almost immediately. "No," Ria sighed, "He doesn't love me anymore and I can't take him back after what he did. There's only so much I can forgive. We're going to sort it out though so he can see the kids on weekends."

"Daddy says he's going to take me to the Castle next weekend." Finn put in at that point, looking over at Ianto from where he and Owen were sat in the visitor's chair.

"That'll be good fun." Ianto encouraged, giving a lopsided smile before he was looking back at his sister again.

"And you can stay as long as you want; you know you're always welcome." Ianto reassured, reaching out to grab his sister's hand again. She gave a hesitant smile before she was picking up the now empty bag and moving over to Ianto's bedside cupboard, packing up the cards stood there.

"Why don't you go get changed and I'll pack everything up? Then we can be ready when Jack turns up." Ria smiled, not looking back over at Ianto, but he didn't fail to notice the fact she was addressing him like he was a child again. He chose not to comment on it, instead pulling himself rather painfully to his feet before grabbing at his clothes with his good arm.

"Where is Nurse Jack anyway? I thought he would have jumped at the chance to dress me."

Ria gave Ianto a sideways glare as she placed his book in the rucksack.

"He got a call while we were on our way over here from Gwen, something to do with work I presume, so he dropped us off and said he'd be back as soon as he could."

**Monday 18th August 3.12pm**

Jack really was trying to listen as the lorry driver relayed his alien encounter to Jack in all its gory detail but his brain was over the other side of the city. He was daydreaming about lying in bed with Ianto, wrapped up in a warm duvet, his face pressed to Ianto's back as he took long lazy breaths when Gwen elbowed him in the ribs, giving him an annoyed look.

"What?"

Gwen motioned to the driver who had stopped talking and was now looking expectantly at Jack.

"Thank you for that information Sir, we'll get right on it." Jack gave a dazzling smile before he was moving round the man to finally look at the body of the Weevil. It had been hit by an oil tanker on the roundabout beside Atlantic Wharf after slipping out of the sewers round the back of the Millennium Centre.

He heard the man shuffling behind him, mumbling 'Bloody Torchwood' under his breath as a police constable led him away to the back of a police van. Gwen had already slipped Retcon into the weak tea one of the young bobby's had provided him with.

"Not a lot we can do really." Jack said eventually, resisting the urge to kick the splattered mess with his boot. You couldn't really tell it was a Weevil anymore it was that pancake flat on the road. Jack started drifting off again, this time to a daydream where he and Ianto were eating breakfast in bed - pancakes and maple syrup. Jack's taste buds were tingling at the very thought.

"Are you even on this planet today Jack?" Gwen asked, giving him another elbow in the ribs followed by a rather annoyed look.

"Sorry, no." Jack admitted, trying to placate her with a grin.

"Come on then, lets get the remains in the back of the SUV then you can go and get Ianto from the hospital." Gwen encouraged, taking the SUV keys from Jack's slack hand and crossing back over the road to bring the SUV closer.

**Monday 18th August 4.55pm**

"Well you certainly took your time."

"Sorry." Jack apologised, holding his hands up in defence as he converged on Ria, Finn and Ianto sat in the waiting room of the main hospital reception. "I know, I'm late, it was a whole big pancake thing."

Ianto frowned in confusion, before shaking his head, deciding he was probably better off not knowing. He shifted slightly in the hospital chair before trying to pull himself to his feet, presuming Jack had parked just outside. A hand stopped him though, pushing him back down into the chair, gently but firmly.

"Do you want to go for a ride in the wheelchair with Uncle Ianto?" Jack asked, a hand still on Ianto's shoulder, holding him in the chair as he looked at Finn. Finn nodded enthusiastically before clambering up into Ianto's lap carefully. Ianto gave Jack a weary look.

"Cheap trick." Ianto replied tight-lipped.

"You should see my encore." Jack replied, giving Ianto an equally tight smile, which suggested, that as grateful as he was Ianto was out of hospital, he was worried that Ianto would immediately start overdoing it the minute he got one foot in his front door. Which, Ianto thought, was slightly judgemental, if entirely fair.

**Monday 18th August 5.37pm**

"I don't want to come back and find an ambulance outside the front." Jack reprimanded as he passed Ianto the cup of coffee he'd just made him, setting the plate of toast within easy reach on the bedside table

"Jack, I can manage for a few hours. I'm not going to take it upon myself to spring clean. I'm not a complete idiot." Ianto replied grumpily. Jack watched him sceptically. Jack knew just the kind of idiot Ianto was. He wished Ria was still here, but she'd gone to see her father about something she was planning for tomorrow, giving Jack a meaningful look. He didn't know what it meant, but he was sure he probably should. He'd worry on it later when there weren't Weevils terrorising the streets of Cardiff and his boyfriend wasn't wrapped up in bandages.

"Ianto please promise me the furthest you will venture is the bathroom? I don't want you falling down the stairs." Jack tried again.

"Jack, go! Before I end up putting you in hospital for being so bloody infuriating. You've got me fed and watered, made sure I've gone to the loo, put me in my PJ's, brought my laptop in with enough DVDs to keep me going until the next ice age and given me both the house phone and my mobile. I'm fine." Ianto ranted, glaring at Jack who opened his mouth to say something. Ianto cut him off by picking up a pillow and chucking it at Jack. It fell short, skimming Jack's legs.

Jack smiled. "I know when I'm not wanted." Jack replied, mock hurt before he was putting the pillow back on the bed, taking one last look at Ianto before disappearing out the bedroom door.

"Be careful." Ianto called after him. Jack didn't know whether to smile or cry.

**Monday 18th August 10.49pm**

When Jack returned he found the house closed up for the evening. Someone had done the dishes and left them to dry on the draining board. The living room had also been tidied up, pillows and blankets neatly folded and piled at one end of the sofa. Someone had even picked up the dirty clothes from the bathroom floor and tidied away the used gauze.

By the time Jack reached Ianto's bedroom he was ready to start yelling at the Welshman, having left Ianto in bed earlier on with the strict instructions to go nowhere other than to use to toilet. He expected to find an ashen-faced Ianto passed out on the bed from exhaustion. He did find Ianto in that very predicament, but he had the duvet covering him, his broken arm resting on a spare pillow, his sister curled up on the other side of the bed, the small form of Finlay lying between them.

Jack let out a sigh as he leant against the doorframe, his anger dissipating as he watched all three of them sleeping. He wanted to crawl in beside them, to curl up next to Ianto and reassure himself that Ianto was still with them. He sagged slightly, suddenly feeling exhausted, the last week catching up with him.

He contemplated driving back to the hub, but he didn't want to sleep in that bed and the eerie loneliness of the hub. He thought about the sofa downstairs, pillow and blankets perched promisingly on the end, but his feet were already traipsing into Ianto's bedroom and sitting down in the armchair on Ianto's side of the bed. He watched as Finlay rolled over in his sleep, abandoning Owen the rabbit for Ianto's good arm. Ianto didn't show any sign that he had noticed; continuing to take long even breathes that hinted at the deepness of his sleep.

Jack settled further back into the chair, stretching his feet out in front of him so they disappeared under the bed. His eyes drooped before he had even gotten properly comfy and he drifted off to sleep with the image of Ianto peacefully slumbering in his mind.

Jack was woken sometime later by a hand on his shoulder. He started slightly in the gloom of Ianto's bedroom, trying to focus sleepily on the face in front of him.

"Sorry Jack." The voice was soft and comforting. He wanted to wrap himself up in it and slip back into sleep, he was that exhausted. He wasn't just physically shattered; he was mentally and emotionally beaten as well. He felt sick with exhaustion, something he had not suffered from in a long time.

"Come on." Soft hands were tugging him up out of the chair and leading him round to the other side of the bed.

"Ria?" Jack finally found his voice, stopping short of the bed and turning to look at the Welshwoman.

"Go on, sleep. Me and Finn will be in the spare room." Ria coaxed, pulling back the covers as Ianto twitched slightly in his sleep. Jack hesitated momentarily, teetering towards the bed on unsteady feet.

"I'm sure he'd rather wake up next to you than a twitching four year old." Ria whispered, pushing firmly in the small of Jack's back so he took the last few steps towards the bed and sunk down so he was sitting on the mattress. He pulled his shirt and trousers off before rolling carefully under the covers.

He heard the bedroom door click shut as his hand hovered over Ianto's forehead, watching his eyes in REM. He tentatively reached out a hand and brushed it through Ianto's downy hair. It brought no reaction from Ianto so Jack pressed his lips to Ianto's right eyebrow. Ianto's head moved towards Jack briefly, eliciting a gentle moan of satisfaction, as Jack felt tears slipping down his cheeks. He was annoyed with himself for crying – what was there to cry for? Ianto was still alive, all the children were safe and sound, and that little boy was gone. But Ianto, his beautifully handsome Ianto; he was just that little more broken, that little bit less innocent, that little bit more worldly wise. He was only twenty-four. No. Jack looked down at his watch in the darkness, the date showing behind the clock face 19th August - just. Ianto was twenty-five now. Twenty-five in a linear timeline, yet miles older on the inside.

**Tuesday 19th August 7.22am**

His phone ringing the next morning woke Jack up, shrilly announcing it's presence in his ear as he shifted in the bed slightly, rubbing tiredly at his eyes.

"Your phone's ringing." A sleepy voice said beside him as Jack rolled over in the bed to face Ianto. "I would have got it but I thought I might get in trouble if I moved."

Jack let out a dopey smile before he leaned off the bed to retrieve his phone from his trouser pocket.

"Hello?" Jack asked round a muffled yawn. He listened intently to the head of the UN on the other end of the phone, glancing over at Ianto's alarm clock to take in the time. Who the hell called on business at this time of the morning?

"It's on my list of things to do for today, Sir." Jack summoned every reverse of politeness he had as he sat up in bed properly, his eyes roaming back to Ianto who was watching him sleepily.

"I'm afraid that we've had more important things to attend to as of late." Jack ground out as his gaze lingered on the swollen purple knuckles of Ianto's left hand. "It is a high priority on our list but-"

Jack's jaw tensed as he was interrupted. Ianto attempted to roll over towards Jack, his good hand reaching out to rest over Jack's now clenched fist. Jack gave a sigh and scrubbed a hand down his face.

"Look. I will sort it out today and the paperwork will be with you in a couple of days." Jack snapped before he hung up, pulling himself from the covers to reach yesterday's clothes.

"Come back to bed." Ianto's voice sounded drowsy behind him.

"I can't, I need to go and-"

"No you don't." Ianto's voice was tired but it was adamant. "Gwen can sort out whatever it is you think you need to do. You need to sleep before it's me picking you up off the floor, which currently I don't think I'm up to." Ianto teased.

Jack turned round to regard Ianto. "Do my ears deceive me? Ianto Jones telling me not to do paperwork?"

"Jack," Ianto started softly, "Please. Paperwork can wait, your sanity is more important."

Jack sighed before climbed back into bed, pulling the covers back up round him and blinking tiredly at Ianto.  
"Ianto Jones, always the voice of reason."

"Good job it worked, I'm all out of reason now." Ianto yawned as he tugged Jack closer, shifting in the bed slightly so he was partially wrapped round Jack's body, his broken arm resting across Jack's torso instead of on a pillow.

"Now you can't get away without waking me or worrying about injuring me further." Ianto snuggled into the side of Jack.

"Ianto Jones, also cunning and devious." Jack chuckled as he kissed Ianto's forehead before eliciting a yawn of his own, nestling down under the covers as he felt Ianto's heart beating against his side, strong and true. Ianto was right, paperwork would wait and Jack currently couldn't think of anywhere else in the world he would rather be.

"Happy Birthday by the way." Jack mumbled into Ianto's hair. "I didn't get you anything, I haven't really had time."

"I think I can forgive you for that." Ianto replied dozily. "Plus you're a gift in itself."

Jack laughed. "You watched Love Actually last night didn't you?"

"Might of." Ianto admitted sheepishly causing Jack to chuckle again, pressing a kiss to Ianto's hair. He sniffed, trying to hold back the tears.

"You okay?" Ianto asked, not turning to look at Jack, but Jack could feel Ianto's good hand twisting round to clasp at the tips of Jack's fingers.

"Yeah." Jack said mock cheerily before pulling the covers up a bit more. "I am."


	18. Chapter 18

**AUTHOR NOTES**: Thanks to my beta Sam for all the ego boosting. There's some Welsh in this chapter. The translation for Suo Gân can be found on wikepedia. And 'Nos Da' means Goodnight.

* * *

**Tuesday 19th August 4.24pm**

Ianto sighed as his doorbell was rung again. Didn't people know he was crippled from saving the world? He reached the door just as he heard Jack padding down the stairs behind him.

"I would have got it." Jack reprimanded. Ianto turned slightly to regard Jack who had a towel wrapped round his middle and was trailing soapsuds all down the stairs. Ianto smiled to himself as he undid the latch and pulled the door towards him, revealing Gwen who was currently telling Rhys off for ringing the bell twice.

"It's a house Rhys, takes a while to get from one end to the other and Ianto's not exactly – oh hello love!" Gwen interrupted herself, smiling as she noted Jack stood on the bottom stairs dripping wet and Ianto still dressed in pyjamas.

"Not interrupting anything I hope." Gwen commented casually as she dunted Rhys in the ribs to make him close his mouth.

"Only we thought we'd invite ourselves round for dinner. Rhys made lasagne." Gwen encouraged, trying to step over the doorstep but not really making it as Ianto was still stood in the way looking a little dazed.

"I'll go get dressed." Jack commented before retreating up the stairs as Ianto reanimated himself, stepping away from the door to allow his guests in.

"It's nothing special mind, just didn't want to invite ourselves round to dinner and then make you cook." Rhys chuckled slightly as he started pulling his coat off, handing Ianto the bag that no doubt contained the lasagne.

"Happy Birthday pet," Gwen chorused as she stepped in to give Ianto a kiss on the cheek, "how you feeling?" She asked, voice dripping with concern as Ianto led the way into his kitchen, depositing the lasagne on the kitchen table before doing the same with himself in one of the kitchen chairs.

"Tired." Ianto admitted, muffling a yawn as he placed his broken arm gingerly on the table.

"You didn't have to come round and make dinner." Ianto protested as Rhys started pulling the lasagne out the bag before fiddling with Ianto's oven settings.

"Well I always make the lasagne too big, plus Gwen has been shuffling on the couch like she's got ants in her pants all day wondering out loud how you were. She was bloody driving me up the wall." Rhys admitted.

"She is sat right here." Gwen interrupted, an annoyed tone to her voice.

"I brought some beer as well." Rhys added, ignoring Gwen as she continued to shuffle from butt cheek to butt cheek on Ianto's kitchen chair.

"Dunno if you're allowed any with the medicine you're taking." Rhys shrugged, offering Ianto one of the beers.

"One won't hurt." Ianto smiled gratefully before motioning to the drawer under the kettle. "Bottle opener's in there."

Jack yawning announced his reappearance in the kitchen as he rubbed absentmindedly at his wet hair with a towel.

"You should have just finished your bath." Ianto commented as Jack pulled out the third chair from the kitchen table and plopped himself down tiredly.

Jack shrugged. "Water was cold and I was in danger of drowning myself." Jack replied rather morbidly as Rhys popped the tops off the three bottles of beer before offering the fourth to Jack. Jack took it gratefully from Rhys just as there was the rattle of the front door opening.

"Hello?" Ria called from the hallway, which was followed by the thundering of feet.

"Uncy Yan!" Finn called before he'd even gotten to the kitchen. When he did reach it he was tugging someone along behind him.

"We brought someone to see you." Finn enthused, pulling on his Granddad's hand one more time so they were stood in the kitchen doorway. Dylan smiled hesitantly down at Ianto for a moment.

There was an awkward silence as Jack looked between Ianto and his father, the beer bottle halfway to his lips. Gwen was just looking intently at the newcomer, distracted only by Rhys mouthing 'who's that?' at her. Gwen mouthed 'father' back, which just caused Rhys to wrinkle his nose up at her trying to figure out what she'd said.

"Happy Birthday, son." Dylan said softly, unsure of how he would be received. Ianto just sat looking at him for a moment, a completely gormless look on his face before he pulled himself painfully to his feet.

"Thanks Dad." He said, holding out his hand for his old man to shake. It surprised him though when Dylan grasped Ianto's hand, pulling him in for a hug instead.

"I'm so glad you're okay." Dylan said quietly, a hand on the back of Ianto's head, keeping him close. Ianto's arms slowly slipped round his father, amazed by his reaction. He couldn't recall the last time his father had hugged him and it suddenly made Ianto feel five years old again. He buried his nose in his father's shoulder, closing his eyes. He could almost smell the tailor's shop, the smell of new fabric, mothballs and chalk, could hear the jingle of the shop bell above the door and see his father's smiling face as Ianto helped him measure out fabric.

"Right," Rhys' voice sounded from the other side of the kitchen as he started opening cupboards, searching for – something. "Best get that lasagne in the oven before we all starve."

**Tuesday 19th August 5.12pm**

Jack stood over the cutlery drawer, tiredly blinking at the contents as if he had forgotten what he was doing. He couldn't say exactly why at that moment tears started rolling freely down his cheeks, but suddenly the past couple of weeks' events just seemed to overwhelm him. He felt a bone deep weariness. He knew that this was Ianto's birthday, and he should be happy that the young man had made it another year, but he also realised how close he had come to losing him the week before.

"Jack?"

Jack didn't realise he was out and out sobbing until he heard Ianto's confused voice in his ear, felt a hand on his shoulder. Jack turned to him without words, wrapping his arms around Ianto as tightly as he could without aggravating his injuries. His face fell to Ianto's shoulder, turning it slightly so his nose rubbed against the pulse point of Ianto's neck.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Ianto pressed as he moved his arms round Jack, holding him close. Jack felt Ianto's hand at the back of his neck, smoothing down his hair in an act of comfort, which just made him cry all the harder.

Rhys hesitated in the doorway of the kitchen, the smile slipping off his face as he watched Jack crying into Ianto's shoulder. For a moment he couldn't take his eyes off the couple, Jack's hands grabbing fistfuls of Ianto's t-shirt as he sobbed profusely. Rhys decided the lasagne could probably do with an extra five minutes in the oven before it burnt. If Ianto and Jack hadn't emerged by then he'd send Gwen in to check on it.

"Jack, what's up?" Ianto asked again when it seemed Jack's crying had quietened somewhat. Jack mumbled something into his neck that Ianto couldn't quite make out so he pushed Jack upright slightly, making sure to keep a hold of him. "What was that?"

"Nothing."

"Jack don't play the petulant child, it's not becoming of you." Ianto replied tiredly, before moving Jack's head up off his shoulder, wiping the tears under Jack's eyes, noting how red and swollen they were. "I'll ask you what I asked my sister yesterday before I get a reputation for making people cry. Are these happy or sad tears?"

Jack avoided Ianto's gaze, staring down at Ianto's t-shirt instead and the logo on there. He sniffled a couple of times before he shrugged.

Ianto sighed. "Fine." Ianto said moving away from Jack to the kitchen doorway.

"I just," Ianto stopped in the doorway, turning back at Jack's hesitant words. "This last week, without you, it was just too much." Jack's voice cracked on the last word and he was crying again. Ianto's heart ached as he moved back to pull Jack back into his embrace again.

"I'm here." Ianto whispered softly, guiding Jack's head onto his shoulder as he started to cry again. He watched as Gwen pushed a reluctant Rhys into the kitchen, who flushed bright red after catching sight of Jack and Ianto still in a similar position to the one that he had left them in moments ago. He bent his head, studying the tiles on the floor as he moved to turn the oven off, pulling the lasagne from it before beating a hasty retreat out the room.

"I think we're holding up dinner." Ianto said softly in Jack's ear as he watched the lasagne cooling on the side. "Why don't you go powder your nose and I'll finish setting the table?" Ianto half teased, causing Jack to let out a choked sob that was more of a laugh. Ianto wiped at the tears on Jack's cheeks again, catching him with a hand to the cheek as he moved to turn away. Ianto lent in and pressed a loving kiss to Jack's lips. "I'm here." He said with conviction. Jack gave him a hesitant smile, nodding before he disappeared out into the hall and up the stairs.

**Tuesday 19th August 7.58pm**

"He refused to put it on, instead ran outside screaming at the top of his lungs that mothballs would eat him." Dylan finished his story before giving a hearty laugh and taking another sip of his whisky.

Everyone in the room was laughing, apart from Finn who just looked confused, and Ianto who had gone a deep shade of red.

"Can mothballs really eat you?" Finn asked innocently from where he was sat in Ianto's lap on the sofa, busy drawing on Ianto's cast.

"No, don't worry. It was just your Mummy traumatising me as a kid." Ianto assured him as he leant further back into the cushions, feeling Jack's hand at the back of his neck, massaging.

"God, you should have seen Mam's face the next day when Mrs. Evans was asking if Ianto had been possessed or something." Ria laughed, almost spilling her glass of wine that Rhys was busy topping up.

"That reminds me of the day Ianto came into work in jeans and a t-shirt. We thought he'd been possessed, and he refused to tell us the real reason why he wasn't wearing a suit." Gwen reminisced, holding out her own glass for Rhys to fill up. Jack snorted trying to hold back the laughter as Ianto went beat red.

"Oh, hang on; I think we've got another story." Ria teased, reaching her foot out to push her brother's knee teasingly.

"No, we don't." Ianto said adamantly, looking sideways at Jack.

"Not for children's ears." Jack mouthed, looking pointedly in the direction of Finn, "Not for anyone's ears really." Jack added, having thought about it for a moment. Ianto shot him another look and Gwen, who was pulling Rhys back down to sit on the floor beside her, when she started laughing.

"Well if we're not going to hear that story, I've got one about Rhys, that'll-"

Rhys physically stopped Gwen talking by putting a hand over her mouth. "You cannot tell that story Gwen Cooper." Rhys admonished, before pulling her wine glass from her hand, "Also I think you've have quite enough of that for one evening."

"How do you know I was gonna tell that story? Could'a been the one about the chocolate milk for all you know." Gwen retorted, trying to get her wine back off him.

"Trust me love, I know you." Rhys replied, putting her wine on top of the telly out of reach. Gwen pouted but didn't divulge either story as Rhys planted a kiss on her cheek in sympathy before he turned to regard Jack.

"What about you Jack? Any embarrassing childhood stories?"

Everyone in the room swivelled to look at Jack as he let a sly smile cross his face. "Oh the usual, dressing up in my Mum's clothes, running naked round the garden."

"So pretty much the same as you are now then?" Ianto joked, earning a rousing chorus of laughter from the rest of the occupants in the room.

**Tuesday 19th August 10.07pm**

"Thanks for everything, Ianto." Gwen said, reaching up to kiss him on the cheek before hugging him.

"What did I do?" Ianto asked, frowning at Gwen as she pulled back. She frowned too, thinking long and hard about it before patting him on the shoulder.

"You got old." Gwen supplied happily. It was only now Ianto realised how drunk she was and that most of the three bottles of wine in the living room had been drunk by Gwen. "Well done you." She said, leaning in to kiss him again, hitting his nose this time.

"Come on you drunkard," Rhys smiled indulgently, rolling his eyes at Ianto as he coaxed Gwen out the front door. "Let's get you home to bed so you can face the world tomorrow."

"Ssh, Rhys!" Gwen hissed, batting her hand in his direction before stumbling down the garden path, "You don't want the neighbours to know."

Rhys and Ianto shared a look that spoke volumes before Ianto grasped Rhys' hand in a firm handshake.

"Thanks for tonight, for cooking and bringing alcohol and just generally looking after us." Ianto smiled as his gaze drifted to Gwen who was trying to open the passenger door of Rhys' car. "All of us."

Rhys smiled warmly as he followed Ianto's gaze. "I'd do anything for her." He laughed a little as Gwen finally managed to get inside the car. "Like Jack would for you." Rhys gave Ianto a meaningful look, but as Ianto opened his mouth to ask him what he meant Jack was suddenly on the front doorstep behind him.

"See you later Rhys," Jack voiced, also shaking Rhys' hand, "Thanks again for everything tonight."

"No bother, man." Rhys said, starting to make his way down the garden path, "Just don't hold your breath that Gwen will be an early riser tomorrow."

Jack laughed before he waved to both Rhys and the drunken Gwen, turning to Ianto. "I'm going to drive your Dad home; Ria's putting Finn to bed. Okay?"

Ianto nodded, eliciting a yawn before he turned towards his father whom had appeared in the hallway too.

"Happy Birthday again, son." Dylan said, shaking his son's hand, giving him a pat on the back for good measure. "Oh, and by the way, if you fancy popping round for Sunday lunch sometime," Dylan turned to include Jack in the conversation, "both of you, you're more than welcome."

Ianto knew his father had been building up to it all evening, and he was grateful he had said something; grateful the damaged bridges had been repaired between them after so long - too long.

"Thanks Dad." Ianto smiled before hugging him briefly. "I'll see you later."

"Don't wait up." Jack said softly, his hand grabbing a fleeting hold of Ianto's, squeezing it in reassurance before he was off down the garden path towards Ianto's car, taking Dylan with him. Ianto watched them go, secretly wishing he were a fly on the wall of the car.

**Tuesday 19th August 10.22pm**

There was silence in the car as Jack drove Dylan Jones back to what had once been Ianto's childhood home. Jack toyed with the idea of putting the radio on but he didn't want it to seem like he was filling the awkward silence. There weren't many men in the world that could make Jack feel that uncomfortable or unsure of himself, but they did have one thing in common – they were both related.

"You really care about Ianto don't you?" Dylan's voice came out of the silence, but when Jack risked a glance in his direction, he was still staring out the passenger seat window.

"I do, very much so." Jack answered, keeping his eyes resolutely on the road ahead.

"Good. He needs someone like you, needs someone to look up to who loves him unconditionally." Dylan replied, voice void of emotion. Jack didn't say anything at first, just watched as the traffic lights changed from red through amber to green before he set off again.

"Like you," Jack said quietly, glancing over at Dylan when he got a chance to find he was looking back at Jack, a confused look on his face. "Ria told me when Ianto was a kid he was most definitely his mother's son, but I can see more and more that he looked up to you and respected you." Jack chanced another glance at Dylan to check if he was overstepping his bounds. Dylan's face was impassive so he ploughed on.

"You told me that the first thing Ianto remembered was that suit you had made for him for his sister's wedding. He doesn't wear anything but suits at work, always immaculately dressed, always telling me stories about when you used to take him to work with you. He hardly talks about his Mum but he still looks up to you and respects you." Jack turned to look at Dylan now they'd stopped at the traffic lights. There was a stunned look of silence on Dylan's face.

"He's my son, Jack. I would love him no matter what, I love all of my children, but I stopped being able to understand them the day they learned to do their own shoelaces." Dylan admitted sadly.

Jack smiled as he put the car in gear now the lights had changed, pulling away from the junction, but he didn't say anything.

"I was so scared last week," Dylan said softly, "I shouldn't have to outlive my children, but when Ianto was lying there I suddenly regretted all the times I hadn't taken him to the rugby because I was working. Four daughters blinded me to the father-son relationship I was supposed to have with Ianto."

"It's never too late to start." Jack encouraged.

"No, you're right. It's not." Dylan answered, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips now as Jack pulled into his street. Jack's heart was tugging painfully in his chest though, trying not to think about the fact that Dylan probably would outlive Ianto, and how painfully close that had come to be a reality the previous week.

**Tuesday 19th August 11.19pm**

All the lights were off downstairs when Jack returned from dropping Dylan home so he trudged up the stairs, expecting to find everyone in bed. Jack paused at the top of the stairs in the landing of Ianto's house when he heard singing coming from the spare bedroom.

_"Huna blentyn yn fy mynwes, Clyd a chynnes ydyw hon;"_

He didn't understand the words, knew they were Welsh and meant to be warm and comforting but the melody was haunting in its beauty.

_"Breichiau mam sy'n dynn amdanat, Cariad mam sy dan fy mron;"_

Ria sang on, unaware she had an audience and Jack suddenly recognised the tune, had heard it before somewhere.

_"Ni cha' dim amharu'th gyntun, Ni wna undyn â thi gam;"_

"Harm will not meet you in sleep, hurt will always pass you by." Ianto spoke softly at Jack's left shoulder from where he had come out of his own bedroom. They both listened as Ria finished the verse.

_"Huna'n dawel, annwyl blentyn, Huna'n fwyn ar fron dy fam."_

"Suo Gân." Ianto told Jack quietly before he turned back into his bedroom, motioning Jack to follow. Jack shut the door behind him as Ianto sank back onto the edge of the bed gratefully.

"Mam used to sing it to us when we were kids. She taught us both the English and the Welsh version when we were old enough. Only Welsh I really know." Ianto admitted, smiling to himself before yawning.

"Bed?" Jack questioned. Ianto nodded before starting to pull his t-shirt one armed over his head. Jack watched him struggling for a moment before moving forward to help. He relieved Ianto of his jeans as well, pulling him back to his feet before turning down the duvet so Ianto could get into bed. Jack then shed his own clothes with speedy efficiency before he put them in the wash basket.

"Gwen's right, I do have you trained well." Ianto teased as he shifted against the pillows, trying to get comfy. Jack just glared at him before he was slipping into bed beside Ianto, taking over the task of rearranging the pillows. He didn't know why he bothered though, when he was done Ianto settled back onto Jack's chest rather than the pillows. Jack didn't complain though, just wrapped his arms around Ianto and held on as tight as he could. He felt safe holding Ianto, it made him feel useful, feel wanted, it felt like he mattered in the world because Ianto needed him to hold him and in that moment that was the only thing that mattered.

"Teach me." Jack whispered, his lips brushing against Ianto's hair.

"Teach you what?" Ianto asked, his good hand finding the ends of Jack's fingertips and lacing them with his own.

"Teach me the Welsh lullaby thing."

"I presume you want the English version since you can't even pronounce Suo Gân?" Ianto teased.

"Whatever version Ianto." Jack said sleepily. Ianto frowned, twisting slightly so he could see Jack's face. It was unlike Jack to fall asleep so readily, especially since they'd not been out of bed all that long. Ianto wasn't surprised that he himself was exhausted; he didn't think he'd be up to much for weeks. Showering this afternoon had almost killed him, so much so he hadn't even had the energy to get up and retrieve the remote, and as a result he'd had to put up with Bargain Hunt.

Ianto reached up and pressed a gentle kiss to Jack's lips, feeling a hand tightening against his own in appreciation. When Ianto pulled back there was a content smile on Jack's face as his eyes slipped closed.

Ianto continued to watch Jack carefully as he started to sing what he considered to be an appropriate verse. _"Paid ag ofni, dim ond deilen gura, gura ar y ddor; paid ag ofni, ton fach unig sua, sua ar lan y mor; huna blentyn, nid oes yma ddim i roddi iti fraw;"_ Ianto stopped as he realised Jack's breathing had evened out, indicating that he was asleep. Ianto kissed him again softly before extracting himself from Jack's grasp so he could turn out the bedside light.

"Nos da Jack." Ianto whispered softly into the darkness as he settled back down beside Jack, his gaze lingering on Jack as he slept peaceful. It didn't last long though before he was staring at the inside of his own eyelids.


	19. Chapter 19

**AUTHOR NOTES**: Please take note of the time jump in this chapter otherwise you will be all kinds of confused. I promise you the last chapter will be up before the end of next week, before I move (again). Again, thank you to all those of you that are still reading this and still loving the Jones' family that I've created.

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**Monday 1st September 7.18am**

"Come here," Jack said as he pulled Ianto's tie from round his neck, taking pity on him. Ianto turned from the bathroom mirror to regard Jack who was now looping Ianto's tie round his own neck.

"Thanks for fixing the hot water by the way," Ianto said as he tried to do up his cuffs before rolling his sleeves up when he discovered his left one wouldn't close over his cast.

"Well as amusing as it would have been to watch you trying to unclog pipes with only one hand, I thought I'd take pity on you," Jack replied with a chuckle as he finished knotting a half Windsor in Ianto's tie.

"Also I may have called for back-up," Jack admitted as he placed the tie back over Ianto's head and proceeded to tidy it away under his shirt collar.

"Oh so you're the person who attacked Rhys with the monkey wrench," Ianto mused.

"Purely accidental," Jack admitted as he pulled the knot tight round Ianto's neck, almost strangling him.

"I believe you," Ianto huffed, trying to make his tie slightly looser. He turned back to the sink, picking up his toothbrush, but Jack was still hovering in the doorway.

"Do you want to brush my teeth as well?" Ianto teased, already smearing toothpaste over his toothbrush.

"You know you don't have to come back to work today," Jack said without hesitation, hands shoved in his pockets as he tried to lean against the door of the bathroom nonchalantly.

"Jack you can't wrap me up in blankets forever you know, and honestly the biggest danger I'll be in today is loss of blood from multiple paper cuts or strangulation by stapling my tie to the boss' desk," Ianto teased before he was brushing his teeth.

"Fine. Don't take it seriously," Jack huffed before he was turning from the bathroom and heading down the stairs.

"Jack!" Ianto called round a mouthful of toothpaste.

"Jack!" He called again, moving out into the hallway, but Jack had already disappeared down the stairs and into the kitchen. Ianto sighed before toothpaste started dribbling down his chin and he had to rush back into the bathroom to spit it out.

When Ianto eventually made it down to the kitchen, he found Jack standing over the kettle, waiting for it to boil. He opened his mouth to say something, to apologise perhaps or admit he was willing to listen now, but Jack was already talking.

"You know what someone once said," Jack shoved his hands in his pockets as he looked down at the floor of the kitchen, turning slightly but not looking at Ianto. "A coward dies a thousand deaths, a hero only once," Jack quoted, still not looking up at Ianto.

"Well Shakespeare obviously never met you," Ianto replied almost immediately, crossing the expanse of the kitchen and taking Jack's chin in his good hand so he could tilt it up until their eyes met.

"You're not a coward Jack," Ianto said, conviction in his voice.

"I gave up on you. When you were gone, I didn't think you were ever coming back. Gwen slapped me." Jack finished rather pathetically.

Ianto chuckled. "I'm sure you probably deserved it, but that doesn't make you a coward, it just makes you human."

"I can't die Ianto. You only get one death."

"Jack," Ianto sighed before he was pressing himself back against the kitchen work surface. He was fed up with this same argument that came up time and again between them.

"Yes, I will die, eventually. But I'm not dead at the moment, and there's no good walking on egg shells around me because I've faced my own mortality more times than I care to remember. I work for Torchwood. I'm never going to go bald or sit in my rocking chair telling my grandkids that I remember the good old days when people used to respect their elders. So bloody well make the most of me while you have me Jack!" Ianto ranted. Jack raised his eyes to Ianto's face, a patent Harkness grin breaking out on it.

"You know you're not making a very good argument for me letting you go to work today. Also if I didn't know your sister would be back in five minutes with both your niece and nephew I would be ravaging you on the kitchen table right now." Jack admitted, moving forward to capture Ianto's lips in a bruising kiss.

"Five minutes is a long time," Ianto groaned into Jack's lips.

"Yet your sister's always early," Jack replied, pulling back from Ianto as he heard the front door open, turning just in time to see a beaming Ria manhandling a baby carrier with Finn in tow.

**A Year Later - Wednesday 19th August 7.42am**

"They're two, they're four, they're six, they're eight, shunting trunks and hauling freight…"

Jack smiled as he leant in the doorframe of the living room watching the sight before him. It was undeniably one of the most adorable scenes he had every stumbled across in the living room, and there had been a few as of late.

His Ianto Jones was sprawled out on the couch, bare feet up on it, his head lolling against the back, resting precariously on the arm of it where one of the cushions was slipping from underneath. Ianto, his hair still ruffled from sleep, was unshaven and snoring softly as the Thomas the Tank Engine Theme tune finished, allowing the actual program to start. On Ianto's chest lay his niece, just one year old earlier on that week. They'd had a small party for her that Saturday afternoon and there were already some of her new toys splayed out on the living room floor. Rona Lloyd wasn't interested in her toys at the moment, she was more interested in the thumb she had in her mouth, her eyes closed in sleep, her head tucked under Ianto's chin. Ianto's own hand was resting on her back, holding her in place on his chest as he took long tired breaths.

It had been another long night, only half way through a long week, but this time it hadn't been due to chasing aliens through Cardiff in the small hours of the morning. Instead, Jack and Ianto had spent the evening chasing children that refused to go to bed round the house in the small hours of the morning. Apparently all the chasing had finally worn out both Ianto and Rona. Finn wasn't his usual perky self either, but Ianto had gotten him into his school uniform and sat him down in front of the television with breakfast. He was quietly munching on Choco Crunch. Jack knew that Finn wasn't the only one who liked the cereal. Ianto seemed to buy it far more often than his nephew visited.

Jack was just thinking of waking Ianto and bustling him into the shower to try and wake him up when the doorbell rang. He waited to see if it woke Ianto but the young Welshman didn't so much as stir. Jack chuckled quietly to himself before he went out into the hall to answer the door.

"Morning Jack," Ria sung cheerily as she smiled warmly at him, stepping into the hall out of the wind and shaking her head slightly to try and put her hair back into some semblance of order

"Good night last night?" Jack asked, giving her a coy smile as he shut the door behind her.

She seemed to hesitate for a moment before looking down at herself, still dressed in the same clothes she had gone out in the night before.

"You could say that," she grinned. "Anyway, I think I held out longer than my brother did for you."

Jack laughed. "We did the three shag rule and then the date. Much more fun."

"Yeah and the rest." Ria smirked before heading into the kitchen to switch the kettle on, dumping her handbag on the kitchen table where the previous night's dinner things still sat.

"So what about you? You four have fun last night?" She asked as she perused the drying finger paintings on the work surface beside the sink. She noticed that most of them were Birthday wishes to Ianto.

"Yup. Ate dinner, did some finger painting, had a nap, and that was just me and Ianto."

Ria smiled as she pulled a mug down from the cupboard, dropping in a teabag before pouring hot water over it.

"Where is the birthday boy anyway?" Ria asked, trying to fish her teabag out with a fork now.

"Having a Polaroid moment with your daughter," Jack replied, plucking his own mug from the drying rack and pouring himself a cup of coffee that Ianto had recently made. Ria raised an eyebrow at him.

"They're asleep on the couch," Jack said as he sampled Ianto's finest. "Your daughter has some powerful lungs on her," Jack clarified, which caused Ria to cringe before she was moving out the kitchen and heading towards the living room.

"Did she keep you up all night?" Ria asked softly as she moved into the living room, her head titling slightly, a smile breaking out on her face as she watched her brother and daughter asleep on the couch.

"Not the whole night." Jack tried to make it seem less bad than it had been, but there was no hiding how exhausted Ianto was. "Just most of it." He cringed at his own words, sipping his coffee as he watched Ianto and Rona asleep on the couch. The illusion was shattered somewhat when Ianto let out a sharp snore, his head turning slightly towards the cushion as he started to drool.

"Makes you wish you had a camera, doesn't it?" Jack sighed almost wistfully but Ria knew he was only teasing.

"Yeah, for blackmail," Ria retorted, smirking into her mug.

"Oh I think we've got enough of those kinds of pictures." Jack leered in return as he watched Ria placing her mug down on the coffee table before reaching out for her daughter.

"Think this one needs changed." Ria said to no one in particular as her daughter snuggled into her mother's shoulder without so much as batting an eyelid. Ianto was now blinking blearily up at Jack, muffling a yawn as he rubbed dozily at his eyes.

"Morning," Jack smiled, "again."

Ianto started making grabby hands at Jack as another yawn escaped his lips.

"You're old enough to change yourself young man." Jack teased as he shoved Ianto's legs off the couch so he could sit down beside him. As soon as Jack sat though it became apparent what Ianto wanted. He pulled the mug of coffee from Jack's hands, taking a large gulp as he righted himself somewhat, rubbing a hand through his hair.

"What's the time?" Ianto asked, yawning as he rubbed sleep from his right eye.

"Almost eight."

Ianto groaned before handing Jack back his mug and pulling himself slowly to his feet.

"I hate working on my birthday," Ianto grumbled as he started shuffling out the living room. An arm caught round his waist, pulling him back into warm, strong arms and the overpowering smell of Jack Harkness.

"So don't go to work. We can do what you want today, even if that means staying in bed all day." Jack waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

"You realise two years in a row makes it official." Ianto answered, one of his hands sliding round Jack's back to pull him closer.

"Hmm?" Jack murmured, his eyes on Ianto's lips as he let his hands wander south to Ianto's arse, causing Ianto to lean in to him more.

"Making my birthday a duvet day. We did it last year and if we do it again this year it'll mean it's official and then every birthday will suddenly become a duvet day."

"Well I'm not going to argue with that kind of logic," Jack replied leaning in to capture Ianto's lips in a kiss. Ianto responded, moaning into Jack's mouth as he deepened the kiss.

A very loud 'EWWW' distracted them from their tongue wars though and they pulled apart, Ianto looking over Jack's shoulder as Jack turned to look at Finlay who was watching them in disgust, his empty cereal bowl in hand, chocolate milk dribbling down his chin onto his school sweater.

"Finn, look at the mess you've made, and I don't have a spare jumper here," Ria reprimanded, coming back into the living room with Rona in her arms. Without a word, she passed Rona into Ianto's arms before chasing her son into the kitchen.

"Maybe if your Uncle hadn't let you eat breakfast with your uniform on." Ria could be heard saying from the other room. Ianto looked at his niece now in his arms before she was coughing, spitting up onto his white t-shirt. Ianto sighed.

"Who needs to be married with 2.4 children when I have my sister's?" Ianto asked rhetorically, watching as Jack chuckled silently to himself while he wiped the spit from Ianto's shoulder with a dirty bib. Rona just gurgled at them both, her big blue eyes taking them both in as Ianto jiggled her slightly on his hip.

"Oh, I don't know," Jack mused, purposefully not meeting Ianto's eyes, "it could have its perks."

Ianto froze in what he was doing, his own eyes matching Rona's in wideness.

"We've got the spare room we could make into a nursery. We've got enough people at work now that one of us could stay home with the kid; take alternate days to look after it," Jack suggested, finally looking up at Ianto and taking in the complete look of horror on his face.

"Jack, please tell me you're not being serious?" Ianto asked, a hint of fear in his voice.

"Well we'd have to get married first, or get a civil partnership, whatever they call it nowadays, and then we could adopt. I mean there's this agency round the corner in Mermaid Quay that looks quite respectable." Jack suggested, watching Ianto to see his reaction.

He looked like a fish out of water. "Are you – are you proposing?" Ianto asked in disbelief.

"Well I was thinking of making it slightly more romantic and asking you over dinner tonight, but I thought I'd just make sure it was a yes before I embarrassed myself in front of family and friends," Jack said as seriously as he could. Ianto had lost the ability to talk.

"Well, eh… it's… I don't really... I mean I'm flattered… but…" Ianto flushed bright red as he failed to form coherent sentences. Jack ploughed on, trying to convince Ianto of his completely serious suggestion.

"We could change the Tourist Office into Torchwood day-care, which I'm sure Gwen and Rhys would back, and the kids could take Myfanwy as show and tell when they got old enough. Or maybe some of the weapons from the secure archives." Jack started laughing; he couldn't keep a straight face anymore as Ianto looked livid. He slapped Jack's arm as hard as he could with his niece still in his arms.

"You bastard!" Ianto yelled, slapping Jack again as Jack laughed heartily, moving away from Ianto and stumbling into the kitchen. Ianto was not seeing the funny side of it though. He put Rona down in her crib before he was following Jack into the kitchen, chasing him round the kitchen table.

"You should have seen your face." Jack continued to laugh, pulling a chair out from the table to block Ianto's way, which Ianto just climbed over to get to Jack, grabbing him round the waist as Jack tried to wriggle free, dragging Ianto from the kitchen.

Ria watched them disappear out the kitchen and heard the stampeding feet receding up the stairs. She rolled her eyes at them, smiling to herself before she went back to wiping down the front of Finn's jumper.

"Twenty-six going on six," Ria muttered as she heard Ianto shrieking from above her.

"Uncle Yan said he's not old." Finn told his mother matter-of-factly, watching as she continued to wipe fruitlessly at the front of his jumper. "When I asked him if he was old last night, he said that you were only as old as you felt and he said he didn't feel old, even though twenty-six is really old. He said Uncle Jack made him feel young."

Ria smiled. "Is that because Uncle Jack is older than him?" Ria asked, glancing up at the ceiling again as she heard Jack yell 'Don't you dare!'

"I said that but Uncle Yan said that it wasn't just that, he said it was because he made him remember his inner child, and I thought he meant that he'd like eaten a child or something, and it was inside of him now and that was how people stay young, but Uncle Yan said I was being daft and not all people ate other people." Finn paused, sticking his finger in the remains of his cereal bowl beside the sink and licking the chocolate milk from the end of it.

"So did he tell you what an inner child is then?" Ria asked, finally giving up on Finn's jumper, sponging at the front with the dishcloth now to try and dry it.

"He said it was like the part of him that likes to do finger painting and play games and other fun stuff that he doesn't get to do at work 'cause he has to be a grown up and do grown up things. And then Uncle Jack said that he wasn't old either because Uncle Ianto made him feel young too and then they kissed and it was icky. Can I have chocolate spread on my sandwiches for lunch?" Finn asked, suddenly changing the conversation to something that was more interesting to him, looking up at his mother imploringly.

"I think you've had enough chocolate today. Go get your shoes on for school," Ria encouraged. Finn frowned before he was disappearing down the hall to retrieve his shoes from by the front door. It had gone quiet upstairs, no more thundering of feet, but as Ria moved to the bottom of the stairs to make sure Finlay was putting his shoes on the right feet he could hear giggling coming from upstairs. It sounded carefree and childlike in its innocence, and Ria couldn't help but smile.


	20. Chapter 20

**AUTHOR NOTES**: This is the last chapter of this fic, and of this series. Some of you have been asking me if I'll be writing anymore from this Series and the answer is I don't have any multi-chapter fics planned for the moment, but there will be a couple of one-shots no doubt. Look out for a Christmas one coming along very soon. I'll label them all as belonging to the 'Footprints in the Sand' series so you'll be able to identify them. Thank you to all of you that have stuck with this, and commented all the way through. It means a lot. :)

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**Unspecified Time and Date**

"Dad?"

There was an unhealthy whine to the little boy's voice, which never boded well. It was going to be one of those questions.

"Yes?"

"Who's that?"

Finlay Lloyd looked over the top of his newspaper down at his son who was sat on the floor in the living room, browsing through old photo albums that his wife Beth had dragged down from the attic earlier on that morning. She was in a spring-cleaning mood, even though Finlay had reminded her it was in actual fact summer. He'd gotten a glare for his troubles and boxes shoved into his arms that he was told to sort out while she was out that evening with friends.

"Who's who?" Finlay asked, leaning forward on the couch so he could see the photo his son was looking at more clearly. The little boy picked up the album though, dragging it across the floor and climbing up onto the couch beside his father before pointing at the picture again.

Finlay set his newspaper aside. "Well you know who that is on the right don't you? Granny's got a picture up on her mantel with him in."

"Is that Great Uncle Ianto then?" The boy asked, fingers that Finlay hoped were clean, moving over the image of his 'Uncy Yan'.

"It is," Finlay confirmed before he pointed out the boy in the middle, "and that's me in the middle when I was a bit younger than you are now."

"Who's that then?"

Finlay smiled, almost rivalling the grin that was smiling out at him from the page. "That is Captain Jack Harkness. Or Uncle Jack to me, even though he and Uncle Ianto were never married."

"Is he still alive?" The boy asked, eyes moving to the other pictures on the page of his great Uncle Ianto and his father building pebble sandcastles on a beach in Aberystwyth.

Finlay frowned. It had been years since he'd heard from his Uncle Jack. They'd kept in touch long after his Uncle Ianto had died, but then he just sort of vanished off the face of the planet one year and Finlay hadn't really thought to question it. He must ask his mother if she still heard from Jack.

"I don't know, he'd be very old now if he was still around." Finlay replied, continuing to look at the pictures as his son continued to flick through the album. It was like a flicker book, watching himself grow up very quickly. He could remember sitting on his Uncle's living room floor adding to the photo album when they had a quiet moment, his Uncle's neat handwriting adorning the margin's until it suddenly changed, became his own wobbly handwriting and his Uncle seemed to disappear from the photos all together.

"Do you still miss him? Is that why you named me after him?" Ianto asked, looking up at his father with wide innocent eyes.

"I do," Finlay smiled nostalgically down at his son, kissing his forehead, "He and Uncle Jack used to take me and your Aunt on lots of adventures, they used to tell great stories as well."

"Can you remember any of them?" Ianto asked, glancing up at his father briefly but he was back to being engrossed in the photos in front of him that now depicted Jack, Ianto, his mother, his little sister and himself all holding ice creams as they smiled for the camera. At least that was what it had meant to depict, what the photograph had actually caught was his Uncle Ianto with ice cream on his nose, flapping his hands wildly, his Uncle Jack laughing heartily, his mother rolling her eyes while smirking, his little sister turning to crawl into Uncle Ianto's lap and himself still staring resolutely at the camera as if by sheer willpower he could make the photo presentable.

"Any of the stories?" Finlay asked as he watched his son turn the page, unearthing more memories. "Of course, I think Uncle Ianto wrote some of them down," Finlay said, reaching for the box with one hand to drag it closer to the sofa, "why, would you like to hear one?" Finlay asked as he delved into the dusty depths of the box.

Ianto nodded, turning to look at his father expectantly, "Does it involve dragons and sword fighting, and ninjas, and pirates?"

Finlay laughed. Ianto reminded him so much of himself as a child sometimes. "There's no ninjas or pirates, but there's fighting and mythical creatures."

Ianto settled back into the couch, pulling the photo album with him. Finlay noticed that his Uncle Ianto was no longer in the pictures and Uncle Jack, when he was evident in pictures, seemed to linger in the background like he didn't quite know what he was doing there anymore.

"Can I get one with lots of blood and gore and death?" Ianto asked, a hopeful look on his face. Finlay sighed, he knew just which story to tell. The last one he remembered his Uncle Jack telling him.

"Once Upon A Time," Finlay started.

"Lame." Ianto interrupted, turning back to the photo album.

"It gets better, now do you want to hear this story or not?"

Ianto shrugged non-committaly. Finlay took that as an indication to continue.

"Once upon a time there was a King called Ianto who lived in his castle with Sir Jack, his most favoured Knight, as well as his family, Princess Rhiannon, Princess Rona and Prince Finn."

"Does that mean I'm the King then?" Ianto asked, turning to look at his father, suddenly interested in the story again now he appeared to be in it.

"It's technically your great Uncle who's King and you may not be so willing to be King Ianto when you find out what happens to him."

"Oh," Ianto said, bowing his head slightly in disappointment.

"They all lived happily in a castle in Wales, and always would do, or so they thought. Sir Jack had a terrible secret though and he knew that one day King Ianto would have to make a terrible sacrifice in order to save his family and his kingdom. Sir Jack knew that King Ianto would die in battle to save his nephew, Prince Finn,"

Finlay could still remember the day like it was yesterday when his Uncle Jack had sat on the edge of his bed, eyes red ringed from crying, trying to explain in his own unique way why Uncle Ianto was dead, and Finn had wanted to rage at him for sugar coating it with fairy tales. But something struck Finlay as he retold the tale of his Uncle's downfall to his son with the same icing on top – all those fairytales that his Uncle Ianto and Jack had spent years telling to Finn and his sister hadn't been fairy stories at all. Every one had been true, every single one had happened, and Jack hadn't been sugar coating Uncle Ianto's death, he'd been reassuring Finn that Uncle Ianto had died a hero, had died protecting what he loved the most – his family. He could also distinctly remember Uncle Jack's parting words before he left.

_"It doesn't hurt any less when you're a grown up."_

**11.42am**

"Ianto!" Finlay called, turning in a circle in Bute Park, searching blindly for his son. He'd just vanished, one minute they were feeding the ducks and the next minute.

"IANTO!"

No reply. But as Finlay turned one more time, drawing the looks of passers by he caught a flash of a blue coat he remembered so well.

He stopped in his tracks, watching as a familiar face moved through the crowd towards him, shocked to find him no older than when Finlay had last laid eyes on him, years previously. There was no smile on his face.

"Uncle Jack?" Finlay asked, a confused tone to his voice as Jack stopped in front of him.

"What are you-? How?" Finlay flailed for words for a moment, hoping that Jack would jump in with an explanation. "I've lost Ianto."

A smile flickered onto Jack's face, showing crows feet round his eyes now that seemed to sparkle with as much life as Finlay remembered. He shook his head once, still smiling.

"Look at that, the boy's gone." Jack said softly, his tentative smile now beaming, reaching his eyes and lighting them up.

"Yes!" Finlay yelled, frustrated, he didn't care that people were staring now. "My son is gone!"

"No," Jack shook his head again, "you, you grew up." Jack reached out a hand for Finlay's cheek, his thumb running down it in a soothing gesture of comfort. Jack's hand slid down from his cheek before it was resting over Finlay's heart. Jack closed his eyes and Finn was getting frantic now, he didn't have time for sentimental reunions.

"Dad?"

Finlay spun on the spot as he heard Ianto calling his name behind him. He swung round to find his son standing there looking up slightly wide eyed at his father like he'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

"Oh thank god," Finlay knelt down, hugging his son close to his chest. "Don't you ever do that again!"

"Sorry," Ianto apologised, looking over his father's shoulder at the very familiar face before him. Yet as Finlay swung round to regard Jack again he was gone. Finlay searched fruitlessly through the crowd but there was no sign of Jack anywhere.

"Where've you been?" Finlay demanded, turning back to his son, sudden anger outweighing his worry.

Ianto shrugged non-committaly again, looking confused. "Nowhere, just here."

Finlay frowned, watching his son for a long moment before he decided not pursue his questioning. He wanted to spend more time searching for his Uncle Jack again, but it seemed far too odd for Jack to be back exactly the same as Finlay remembered him over thirty years ago. He sighed, pulling himself to his feet, before grasping Ianto's hand in his own, certain that he was never going to let go of him again.

"Come on let's get home to your Mam, she'll be wondering where we've got to." Finlay said as he led the way out of the park.

"If we lived in the park we wouldn't have to go home, 'cause then we'd always be at home." Ianto piped up after a moment, following his father obediently across the manicured lawns towards the wrought iron gates. Finlay chuckled before he turned to look at Ianto.

"Maybe this is home," Finn whispered conspiratorially. "Maybe this is where King Ianto's castle is."

Ianto laughed, "Maybe that's why they had huge gates to get in, but the castle is guarded by magic powers so no one can see it and it only comes out at night so that –"

_Never grow up._ Finlay thought as he listened to his son rambling on about King Ianto's magical castle as they walked back towards the city centre to get the bus home.

_Never ever grow up._

_-END-  
_


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